The sixth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which began with much fanfare on 2 April, reached a record number of 100 million viewers in the opening week.
According to TAM viewership data, a total of 100 million viewers watched the five matches played in the first week of the Pepsi IPL 2013 that was broadcast on two channels - Max and Six. For the first time, the tournament is also being broadcast with a Hindi commentary. This year's viewership is far better than that of last IPL's first week matches which touched 79 million.
The opening ceremony of IPL 6, which saw some pulsating performances by popular Bollywood stars, fetched a TRP rating of just 1.8. However, this is much better than the last year's opening ceremony ratings which netted 1.2 points.
"The ratings are looking very good primarily because of the quality of the matches. They were very competitive and none of the five matches was one-sided. This increases the interest levels of the viewers," Navin Khemka, managing partner of media agency ZenithOptimedia India was quoted as saying by Business Standard.
"We are thrilled with such an encouraging start to this season of the PEPSI IPL 2013 and the numbers more than corroborate this. We are delighted with the opening week results and it only proves that our campaign Sirf Dekhne Ka Nahi has been a huge success. There is a lot more to look forward to in the coming days and as the tournament progresses we are confident that this will be a phenomenal season," said Neeraj Vyas, EVP and Business Head, MAX.
However, there has been slight decline in the ratings of the matches as compared to the last IPL season. This year's first match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils fetched a TRP of just 4.1, as against last year's inaugural match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians which raked in a high TRP of 5.5.
There had been sharp decline of 100 GRPs in the General Entertainment Channels (GECs) ratings last week, which experts believe is because of the ongoing IPL.
IPL 6 kicked-off with an opening ceremony at Kolkata's Salt Lake Stadium. A total of nine teams will be competing against each other for more than one and a half months to win the trophy. The IPL teams include Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Pune Warriors India, Kings XI Punjab, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals.
