Advertising Industry 2014-15

Advertising growth to nearly halve to 9.6% this year

The growth rate of the advertising industry is expected to nearly halve to 9.6 per cent this year at Rs 40,658 crore over the previous year, says a report.

The growth this year will be largely on account of the ongoing Cricket World Cup and spends across sectors, it said.

Driven by the massive election-related spends, the advertising industry grew at an impressive 16.4 per cent in 2014 to Rs 37,104 crore.

"A stable government focused on growth, positive market sentiment, upbeat consumer confidence will be the leading contributors to growth. The overall market is expected to grow by over Rs 3,500 crore to reach Rs 40,658 crore, a growth of 9.6 per cent over 2014," the Pitch-Madison Media Advertising Outlook said.

The report noted that the biggest contributor to growth will be organic spends across sectors and the Cricket World Cup.

The report also observed that in terms of absolute numbers the industry increased by over Rs 5,200 crore in 2014.

Advertising spends by political parties on account of the LokSabha and assembly elections contributed as much as Rs 2,300 crore, it noted.

"It is significant to note that of 16.4 percent growth, 7.2 per cent was on account of elections and 3.6 per cent through e-commerce players. Other categories contributed to only 5.6 percent," the report said.

The report however said the expected growth of 9.6 per cent in 2015 cannot be directly compared to the growth registered in 2014, as political parties contributed a major chunk with the elections.

"The 9.6 per cent growth estimate should be compared with the like-to-like category growth of 5.6 per cent achieved in 2014 and not the overall growth of 16.4 per cent. That is because, though the market grew by 16.4 per cent in 2014, growth was driven by elections and the money accounted from this will diminish in 2015," it said.

PRINT:

The print media is likely to grow 5.3 per cent on the back of increased government spending and advertising by e-commerce players and the size of print ad industry to be close to Rs 16,086 crore, up from Rs 15,274 crore last year.

"Print should continue to be the largest contributor in the overall advertising pie with a share of around 40 per cent," the report said, observing that its share has fallen from 47 per cent in 2008 to 41 per cent in 2014.

TELEVISION:

The share of television space in the overall advertising pie is expected to remain static at 38 per cent and is expected to grow 9.5 per cent to touch Rs 15,500 crore, up from Rs 14,158 crore.

"One of the drivers of growth will be the ongoing the Cricket World Cup, expected to earn revenue of around Rs 1,000 crore, of which around Rs 500 crore is likely to be additional revenue. The balance will be part of organic growth across sectors, mainly banking, financial services and insurance, telecom, consumer durables, auto mobile and others," the report said.

It noted that new channel launches from existing networks will lead to increased inventory supply, which in turn will lead to a hike in advertising revenues.

The phase III of digitization will also lead to increased revenues as most channels sell HD content separately, which will attract premium advertisers.

"With the government extending the deadline for Phase III of the digitization drive to December 2015, the increased penetration of digitization will lead to increased spending on niche, SD and HD channels. HD channels are now being sold separately and the facility of geotargeting ads on TV will attract more premium, local and retail advertisers," the report said.

DIGITAL:

Digital advertising is expected to grow 30 per cent with revenues expected to reach Rs 5,135 crore. "An idea of the phenomenal growth of the sector can be assessed by the fact that the medium which drew revenues of Rs 470 crore in 2008, is expected to cross the Rs 5,000 crore mark in 2015," it said.

Digital's share in the overall advertising pie has also increased from just 2 per cent in 2008 to over 10 per cent in 2014 and in 2015 it is expected to be 12.6 per cent. E-commerce players are expected to be the drivers of growth for the category, the report added.

RADIO:

The radio sector is expected to grow 6 percent to Rs 1,362 crore. "With confidence that the government will finally launch Phase III expansion by September, a large number of stations are expected to open and the new stations should pull in at least Rs 70 crore of additional ad revenue in the last quarter of the year," the report said.

Radio was used extensively by political parties during elections and this is expected to continue in 2015. E-commerce advertisers have also used the radio medium extensively for all their tactical offer-based campaigns and will continue with heavy spends on radio this year also, it noted.

OOH:

It expects the outdoor media to grow 6.2 percent to Rs 2,371 crore. Last year the medium grew by 13 per cent to touch Rs 2,233 crore again driven by the elections.

This year the growth of this medium will depend on spends by e-commerce companies, retailers, telecom, apparel and jewellery marketers handsets mobile manufactures and infrastructure companies."

The report expects a growth of 9.2 percent in cinema space taking the total revenue to over Rs 200 crore. it grew 10 percent in 2014 and contributed 0.5 percent of the ad pie.

It noted the rapid expansion of multiplexes in small towns cities is a big reason for the growth of cinema advertising. "Fuelling the growth of cinema advertising will be digitization. Multiplex screens are expanding across the country and big movie releases playing on the screens are expected to attract a lot of national and local advertisers ," it said.

SOURCE:ET

Online Advertising

Online advertising market to touch over Rs 3,500 crore by March 2015 

Rising marketing spend in sectors like e-Commerce, telecom, FMCG and consumer durables will help the online advertising market in India, which is projected to grow at 30 per cent to touch Rs 3,575 crore by March 2015, a IAMAI-IMRB study today said. 

According to the study, the online advertising market has grown from Rs 1,140 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 2,260 crore in 2012-13 and was estimated to be worth Rs 2,750 crore in 2013-14. 

The online ad segment is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 25 per cent between FY'2011 to FY'2013. 

The overall ad spend in the country across all media is Rs 38,598 crore as of 2013 with a year-on-year growth rate is 12 per cent, with television accounting for 44 per cent of the spend. 

"The gradual increase in adaptation of Internet has opened the door to the marketers to go online and spend on digital advertisement.With mobile devices becoming a predominant mode of Internet access among the users in India, this number is expected to increase (further) 

"Although traditional media still holds strong ground in the Indian ad space, digital advertising is catching up fast and is expected to overtake traditional media within the next 5-10 years," Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International said. 

The high growth can also be attributed to increasing advertisement measurability, which is both quick and effective, it added. 

"In addition to the increasing adoption of mobile devices, the increasing connectivity and improvements in broadband infrastructure will lead to increased investments in more content rich advertisements viz video and social media advertisements," it said. 

Digital ad spend on mobile devices stood at 14 per cent, whereas on desktops and laptops at 86 per cent. 

As of June 2014, there were 243 million claimed Internet users in India out of which 192 million are active users (use Internet at least once a month). 

The growth in e-Commerce industry and their ad-spend in digital media is the highest, contributing close to 20 per cent, followed by telecom and FMCG & consumer durables. 

The digital ad spends by the e-Commerce industry has been growing at a CAGR of 59 per cent since 2011 and stood at Rs 495 crore at the end of March 2014. 

Spend by telecom stood at Rs 413 crore, followed by FMCG & consumer durables (Rs 385 crore), BFSI and travel (Rs 303 crore each). 

Currently, search and display contribute 38 per cent of the overall ad spends, followed by display ads (29 per cent) and social media (13 per cent). 

"It is estimated that the proportion of spends on search advertisements will reduce and spends will increase on email, video and mobile ads," it said. 

SOURCE: Economic Times

Media & Entertainment

Introduction

The Indian M&E sector is making significant space for itself on global canvas owing to which many international production houses and business conglomerates are venturing into the country. For instance, Disney’s big stake buy in UTV Software Communications majorly drove the foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2011-12 in the sector, which stood at Rs 32.64 billion (US$ 588.95 million) 72 per cent higher than Rs 18.87 billion (US$ 340.86 million) received in 2010-11.

Television

Healthy advertisement spends coupled with increased penetration in rural and semi-urban areas are propelling the growth of the television sector in India. Emergence of direct-to-home (DTH) technology in a big way has made the television industry mark a value of US$ 7.1 billion by the end of 2011, which was 14 per cent higher than that in 2010.

A report prepared by KPMG, along with an industry body, has stated that while the current level of penetration is estimated at around 60 per cent, there is still a room for expansion in the Indian TV landscape. The report estimates that pay-TV subscription revenue will increase from 65 per cent in 2011 to 69 per cent by 2016.

Radio

While TV is a captive medium, radio allows freedom of movement. Other than being a popular medium with the youth, radio has far-reaching impact on people in remote places.

Recently, Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) has launched an interactive live web-radio from its campus studio in Nashik, Maharashtra. Through this technology, the university intends to connect students from anywhere in the world to experts of various subjects and enable them to listen to lectures, hold discussions and interviews.

Online and Mobile Entertainment

Internet has emerged as one of the strongest mediums to reach out to people, due to better broadband speeds, easy availability and reasonable pricing of internet-enabled devices and awareness among today’s youth. The online viewership of video content is on an upsurge – be it for news or for entertainment (social networking, shopping, et al). Due to this increased popularity, mobile phones have become the second most-viewed screen for Indian consumers. About two crore internet users in India are opting for the service over their mobile phones, according to a study by online audience and ad measurement platform Vizisense.

Social networking sites have also gained a lot of attention over past few years. They reach to about 82 per cent of the world’s online population and the numbers are increasing day by day. India’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are also looking to capitalise this medium as social media in the country is growing at 100 per cent and 129.3 million Indians are anticipated to join the forums. SMEs are looking forward to reach and develop a strong consumer base through social networking sites. An industry body has even joined hands with Facebook to organise road shows to spread awareness among SMEs about the benefits of using social media for business transformation.

Films

The Indian film fraternity will complete its century in 2013. The industry is anticipated to grow by 9 per cent per annum till 2015 to reach US$ 2.8 billion, according to Deloitte.

In an effort to make India a hub for international films, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) is contemplating to establish a Film Commission that will initially act as a single-window clearance agency to grant permits for shooting. If the initiative gets materialised, international production houses will save a lot of time and energy which are currently diverted in seeking multiple approvals.

Investments

The Indian advertising industry clocked revenues worth Rs 25,594 crore (US$ 4.62 billion) in 2011, which were 8 per cent higher than the figures achieved in 2010, according to a report by Pitch Madison India.

• The fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector has numerous brands and categories to offer to consumers. The sector players keep introducing new products and hence, seek sales-support with ads and promos. The industry segment contributes more than half to TV advertising and 9 per cent to the print media.
• In order to target multi-tasking and busy viewers, M&E industry major Zee Entertainment Enterprises has launched its over-the-top (OTT) distribution platform called Ditto TV. The new service, which facilitates live TV channels and on-demand video content to users on their mobile phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, entertainment boxes and connected TVs, was launched in Februry 2012 and also offers features such as adaptive streaming, an electronic program guide and a content recommendation application.
• Aegis Group has acquired Communicate 2 to merge it with its iProspect global network. Communicate 2 is a specialist performance marketing firm that counts search marketing, digital strategy consulting, social media and digital content production as its forte.
• Getit, pioneer of the concept of Yellow Pages in India, has appointed Aidem ventures to handle its corporate advertising sales for next 5 years. Getit has upgraded itself into a digital media firm that specialises in local search and classifieds. It is India’s leading ‘directional media’ service provider that facilitates quality prospects to businesses and brands across the categories. Aidem is an independent media consulting, marketing and advertising, sales company.

Government Initiatives

Apart from setting up a Film Commission, the Ministry of I&B is also working on an incentive package in co-operation with the Ministry of Tourism wherein they would promote film tourism.

Ms Ambika Soni, Minister for I&B, India and her counterpart, the Poland Minister for Culture and National Heritage, Mr B Zdrojewski, will sign an audio-visual co-production agreement. The two ministries would also hold discussions on how to preserve film heritage at the National Film Archives of Poland.

Road Ahead

Indian animation industry is at a very nascent stage and is expected to grow in the recent future. Indian players are majorly acting as ‘service providers’ wherein they are involved with labour-intensive production and post-production activities. However, they are increasingly adapting to international animation standards and are learning modern techniques to come at par. Industry experts, considering the potential in Indian participants, expect the country’s animation industry to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 23 per cent to reach US$ 961 million by 2013.

Exchange Rate Used: INR 1 = US$ 0.01805 as on September 13, 2012

References: Media Reports, Press Releases, Deloitte Report

Mobile Advertising

Mobile Advertising witnesses tremendous growth 

– Gen Y dominate usage!

Over 15 Million new mobile users join the telecom bandwagon every month. There is every possibility that India may reach the 1 Billion Telecom user mark by end of this year itself. With it, Mobile advertising is also seeing quite a surge – Record number of Mobile ads are served month on month.

According to recent report released by Buzzcity, a leading mobile ad network, a total of 5.8 billion ads were served in India in first quarter of 2011 on their network. India reached its highest levels of traffic to date in March, with 2.4 billion ads served to 49.79 million unique users.

Interestingly, even with such high advertiser participation, the ECPM bid rates still are relatively low at USD 0.03, which is a bargain!

Rural Mobile Advertising Traction

Rural India seems to be now matching Urban India when it comes to Mobile advertising growth – Large concentrations of users are forming in Uttar Pradesh (7%), Kerala (6%) and Punjab (5%) with growth also remaining strong in rural areas. The demand for mobile entertainment is expected to continue growing as more users in rural India turn to the mobile internet.

Mobile Advertising Demographics

52 % of all users accessing mobile internet are between age 20- 24 years, of while 23% are between ages 25 – 29. This clearly shows than Gen Y uses Mobile internet & application much higher than any other demographics. And this crowd is male dominated with over 84% usage by them alone !

Top Mobile Handset Brands used in India

There are no surprises here – Nokia leads with more than half of all the traffic coming from their handsets. The surprising aspect is Samsung garnering more than 18% share which is significant, given the fact that likes of Micromax, Zen, Karbonn and other Indian brands are seeing significant traction in the market.

Mobile Consumer Channels

User activity on mobiles was centered on the cricket world cup in the first quarter; advertisers and developers took advantage of this and launched cricket-themed applications, games and marketing campaigns. Thus, Entertainment & Lifestyle (33%) channel attracted maximum traffic followed by general Mobile content (30%). Community services like chatting, messaging saw 21% market share.

CO-BRANDING: AN OVERVIEW

Winning through partnership

Through co-branding strategy, the new entrants in retail market have successfully established their brand identity and created new consumer base

In today’s competitive market scenario, where every category has different brands offering product with similar features and price points, it’s become very challenging for a new brand to sustain in market and create a new consumer base. As a brand building alternative, most of the brands launch their new consumer products through co-branding. It is a proven concept where two or more brands merge together to become a single product.

Objective

The co-branding strategy has been used by players in every sector be it automotive or consumer durable or apparel brands or fast food giants. Many leading brands and retailers use this marketing strategy in order to attract new customers, increase the brand awareness, support the customer loyalty etc. The aim of co-branding strategy is to combine two brands in order to attract more customers and to maximize the power and prestige that each brand has to offer. The partnership helps in opening up new markets and marketing opportunities for both brands.

Different forms of co-branding

There are four different forms of co-branding. The first form is ingredient co-branding – an example could be Dell computers with Intel Processors. Next form of co-branding is same-company co-branding – a Titan watch from the house of Tata is an example of the second kind.  Joint venture co-branding is yet another form of dual branding – the case of Godrej and Procter and Gamble is example of this kind. And last is multiple-sponsor form of co-branding, where co-branding of two or more companies work together to form a strategic alliance in technology, promotions, sales, etc. The example would be the case of HCL computers with hardware alliance of HP, processor alliance of Intel and software alliance of Microsoft.

Advantages

Through co-branding both brand and consumers are benefitted. The brand gets preliminary benefit of instant brand recognition in markets where there may not be any consumer awareness (at the launching stage) or a lesser degree of consumer awareness a company desires. Other benefit is the financial advantage provided by the alliance. It results from the sharing space, which lowers operating costs, maximizes marketing dollars through joint promotions and increases marked exposure with one product carrying both brand names.  Consumers´ attitudes toward a particular brand alliance influence their subsequent attitudes towards the individual brands that comprise that alliance. 

Disadvantages

Despite all the advantages of co-branding, there are possibilities that the strategy may have negative effect on the partner brands due to co-branding. The strategy may fail if the two products have different market and are entirely different. If there is difference in visions and missions of the two companies, then also composite branding may fail. If the customers associate any adverse experience with a constituent brand, then it may damage the total brand equity. Once a brand takes position in the market, it becomes difficult to dismantle the co-brand. Also it will become a big challenge for brand to re-establish the brand identity alone.

Future of co-branding in India

As the consumer in today’s modern era are more informative, demanding and conscious about their buying behavior, the need for co-branding in retail will increase in future. Many foreign giants are venturing into Indian retail sector in strategic partnership with Indian companies – the example will include Wal-Mart, Metro, and Tesco etc. With advance technologies in modern retailing, it is now possible to know the exact information about consumer shopping habits, which further will help retailers to improve marketer knowledge and strategies. As additional market sectors become more and more difficult to penetrate for newcomers, co-branding may be preferred as a faster, cheaper and safer growth strategy.

IRS

IRS 2010, Q4: Hindi belt laps up the English press

Amongst the Hindi speaking states, Rajasthan has shown an increase of 37 per cent in readership of English dailies in the last two years.

Except for Delhi and Goa, the penetration of English print in most states is below 7 per cent. However, what's encouraging is that in the Hindi speaking markets, the English press is slowly strengthening its grip, albeit in small numbers.

In between R1, 2009 and Q4, 2010, English dailies have registered growths in total readership in all Hindi speaking states, except for Delhi and Madhya Pradesh (MP). The best part of this is that the English dailies have recorded double-digit growths in eight of the 13 Hindi speaking states.

In Rajasthan, where the penetration of English print is as low as 1.26 per cent, English dailies have registered a growth of 37 per cent in the last two years. In 1992, The Times of India (TOI) had shut down its Jaipur edition, though it continued to reach the readers through a Delhi edition printed in Jaipur. However, the Rajasthan market experienced a spurt in June 2008, when DNA was launched in the Pink City and the TOI also re-launched its Jaipur edition. Hindustan Times (HT), too, had shut down its Jaipur edition, but carried on with the distribution of the Delhi edition in the city - it still does the same.

The growth in Rajasthan could be attributed to the TOI and DNA. The TOI's readership has grown by about one lakh readers (from 3.3 lakh to 4.2 lakh readers) in two years. DNA, too, has doubled it readership since R2, 2009, when it was first reported.

English readership comes from Jaipur, which is fast becoming a well-read market because of various reasons including the annual Literature Festival, the royal population and the educated group which is interested in national and international news - a section which, to a large extent, is ignored by the local Hindi dailies.

In Jharkhand, the penetration of English dailies is slightly higher (2 per cent) in comparison to Rajasthan. In this industrial state, English dailies have registered a growth of more than 31 per cent (from 3.83 lakh to 5.04 lakh).

This market could see further growth for English dailies, provided they take this market more seriously. Till today, The TOI and HT print their facsimile editions from Ranchi, while The Telegraph is still considered as a West Bengal-oriented newspaper in the state.

Gujarat is another market where the penetration of English dailies is only 1.19 per cent. Here, too, English dailies have registered a growth of 21.59 per cent (from 4.54 lakh to 5.52 lakh) in two years. The spurt in this market also came from DNA and the TOI, as it happened in Rajasthan. DNA was launched in September 2007 from Ahmedabad and three months later, the TOI launched Mirror from the city. Both dailies gave the English readers a mix of soft news and opinion.

Amongst the North Indian markets (Punjab, Chandigarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh), Chandigarh, where the penetration of English dailies is very high (31 per cent), has registered a growth of 21 per cent. In Haryana, the growth rate has been 14.69 per cent, while in Himachal Pradesh, the growth rate has been 7.17 per cent. This growth can be considered to be organic because there were no significant launches in these markets.

In Punjab, English dailies have grown at a slower pace during the period - 3.87 per cent - despite the fact that Hindustan Times has been aggressive out here. In November 2010, it introduced dedicated local pages for five locations in Punjab, including Patiala, Bathinda, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Ludhiana. Following this, the paper, which was reaching out to the readers of these five cities through a replica of the Chandigarh edition, also has content tailored to the needs of the local populations of the five cities.

For this, the group has spent Rs 11 crore in upgrading the machinery in Chandigarh and has also installed a printing facility at Jalandhar to reach these five cities.

Interestingly, the national capital, where English dailies have the highest penetration, is the biggest loser in terms of growth percentage. Any English daily in Delhi, having readership of 9.64 crore, has lost 6.7 lakh readers since R1, 2009. Any English daily has registered de-growth of 6.5 per cent.

It is one of the rare markets where both the TOI and HT have registered declines. While TOI is the biggest loser and has lost 3.62 lakh readers during the period, HT has lost about 1.39 lakh readers in Delhi.

The two tabloids, Mid-Day and Mail Today, which were introduced in Delhi in 2007, were of not much help either in stabilising the numbers.

However, experts believe that the decline in readership in Delhi is not a matter of concern for the planners - plus or minus 5 per cent doesn't make a difference for Delhi.

In MP, too, English dailies have shown a decline of 6.43 per cent - in a market where English dailies penetration is already the lowest at 0.5 per cent. However, the launch of the TOI could change things in the market. Besides, HT has started consolidating its position in Madhya Pradesh. As part of this, the daily introduced a printing facility in Indore in May 2010, which will later culminate into an edition.

Perfetti's ‘Stop Not' chips

Perfetti plans to enter snacks market with ‘Stop Not' chips

Perfetti van Melle, a leading confectionery maker, is planning a foray into the Rs 3,000 crore Indian packaged snacks market with its own brand of chips called ‘Stop Not.'

This is the first time that the multinational company is diversifying into the snacks business.

The Italian-Dutch company is expected to launch two versions (shapes) of chips called ‘Golz' and ‘Diskets.' Across the two versions, it is targeting around eight flavours — ‘thai chilli', ‘tomato chutney' and ‘mad masala.' The launch is expected to be around April-May this year.

Perfetti, a Rs 1,200 crore (2010) company, has around 30 per cent share of the confectionery market.

It manufactures and markets popular gum, candy and mint brands such as Center Fresh, Center Shock, Fruitella, Happy Dent, Big Babol, Alpenliebe, Chocoliebe, Chlormint and Mentos.

Deloitte India said, For a company in the confectionary market, getting into chips is a natural fit. They can ride on the existing distribution as there is a lot of synergy with the market for its existing products.

The chips market is believed to be worth around Rs 1,500 crore (2010) and is part of the Rs 3,000 crore packaged snacks industry. This number represents only national and regional organised (branded) players, though a similar market exists in the unorganised sector as well. Among the former, Pepsico brand Lay's is believed to be market leader, followed by ITC's Bingo and Parle's Hippo.

On the snacks side, Lot of action happening as there is a trend of increasing out-of-home consumption due to the convenience it offers. Strong distribution through small shops also helps. Although there are a few organised players in the space, there is space for more. New players can ride on the volume growth of the category.

Nestle India

Nestle India to set up ninth facility in Himachal Pradesh

Nestle India has chosen Himachal Pradesh for its ninth manufacturing facility in the country. The new facility to manufacture chocolate and noodles may entail an investment of “anywhere between Rs 400 to 500 crore”.

Besides, Nestle also plans to add capacity to its existing units in Punjab, Haryana, Goa and Karnataka; and a new R&D facility in Haryana. Overall, the company has budgeted investment of Rs 1,800 crore in the next two to three years.

Fielding questions from the media at a press conference here to announce the launch of its new Nescafe Sunrise and TV commercials featuring film star couple Surya and Jyotika, company has already invested Rs 360 crore of the proposed investments in a new facility that's coming up at Nanjangud to manufacture instant noodles and another Rs 500 crore on its Goa facility, where it manufactures confectionery.

World cup viewers: Insight

World cup draws record no of viewers..

The Cricket World Cup 2011 is setting new benchmarks in viewership ratings in India.

According to the latest figures issued by rating agency TAM, more than 127 million people tuned into the first 10 matches on the official broadcaster ESPN Star's channels, a record for cricket World Cups so far.

The number of viewers account for more than 64 per cent of the cable and satellite homes in the country. The matches have also recorded high viewership numbers on Doordarshan. The national channel and ESPN Star's bouquet account for 115 million viewers, of which 106 million viewers were on the ESPN Star bouquet.

The average television rating (TVR) for the first 10 matches stood at 3.1, much higher than the 2007 edition. Amongst non-India matches, the Pakistan and Sri Lanka match delivered the highest average rating of 4.6, while The Netherlands and England game notched up a TVR of 2.5. Pakistan and Sri Lanka also delivered an impressive peak TVR of 11.7, slightly lower than 12.48 TVR peak rating for the opening match between India and Bangladesh.

According to aMap ratings, the India-England match delivered average ratings of 6.44 TVR. The encounter played on a Sunday also got a strong response on the online stream with 1.45 million viewers.

The live streaming on www.espnstar.com/cwclive has served 6.9 million video streams as of March 1. Of the total, over 5 million have been unique visitors.

The ratings for the non-India matches are healthy and point towards increasing viewer interest in the tournament as a whole. Credit must also be given to the teams who are dishing out such exciting fare and ESPN advertisers are lapping it up.