Hanging up on IPL

With the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) season drawing to a close, the eyeballs have started returning to traditional modes of entertainment. General entertainment channels (GECs), which saw viewers migrate to instant cricket, are reporting a surge in viewership.

The latest TAM figures are not out yet, but Tarun Mehra, Business Head, Zee TV, says viewers are returning to GECs for their daily fix. It wasn’t just the rivals of Sony Television—the official IPL broadcaster—who were affected, but also its sister channel, Sony Entertainment Television. The viewership for its Waar Parriwar, a musical contest, hit a low of 0.14 during IPL. Of course, the biggest damp squib was the Shah Rukh Khan-hosted quiz show, Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?, which hit a low of 1.96 in TVR during the peak phase of IPL.

Bollywood was smarter. “Traditionally, the first quarter of a new financial year is a boom time for movies, because of the summer vacations. But this time, all the big-banner production houses delayed their releases because of IPL,” says Tushar Dhingra, COO, Adlabs Cinema. And it has paid off. “Not just Sarkar Raj, which stars the Bachchan clan and, hence, was expected to command a strong opening, but also a small budget movie like Aamir, which released after the IPL, received a good response,” informs Dhingra. That should give the TV and movie industries something to smile about.

—Tejeesh N.S. Behl