Live telecast of Indian Premier League (IPL) matches on television is fast losing eyeballs to mobile and internet platforms.
Roughly 13 million people watched matches on mobile TV, up from 0.2 million recorded in the first week, according to Apalya Technologies, the official mobile video streaming partner of IPL 5, which ended on Sunday. Views grew five times to 14 lakh for the first nine matches itself compared to 3 lakh during the entire last season. Viewers spent an average of anywhere between 17 and 20 minutes on the matches.
Mobile viewership has been rising as Indians buy more smartphones with a variety of applications.
?The fact that mobile TV viewership is increasing is a proof in itself that the trends are changing and we are adapting to newer ways of watching TV,? says Vamshi Krishna Reddy, co-founder & CEO, Apalya Technologies.
Smartphones pulled viewers from television as the tournament advanced. The combined usage of sports-related application and websites on smartphones increased from 16% during the pre-week of IPL between March 26 to April 4, to 20% in first week, 22% in second and 24% in the third week of IPL 5, data from Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights show.
Websites? viewership, too, increased. IPL’s official website ipl.indiatimes.com, owned by Times Internet (TIL) in partnership with YouTube, registered a 56% growth in the first week, including the opening ceremony.
Nearly 14 million people logged on to the official website in the first 10 days of the tournament, compared to the overall online viewership of 8.8 million last season.
?Online viewership of IPL is growing, riding on the rapid growth of digital media in the country, availability of better bandwidth and higher interactivity through social networking sites,” says a media expert.
However, television ratings continued to drag. According to TAM Sports data, the first 27 matches recorded an average viewership of 3.53 TVRs, which fell to 3.4 TVRs after 48 matches and further declined to 3.27 TVRs after 68 matches. This data doesn’t include play-offs and the final.
?IPL?s novelty is wearing off and viewer fatigue is setting in,? said Rakesh Jariwala, leader (sports and films) at audit and consulting firm Ernst & Young in an earlier interaction with FE.
?The tournament is maturing and TV viewership is likely to go down further in the coming years.?
