IPL 2016: First week TV ratings indicate viewer apathy

NEW DELHI: The latest television ratings for the first week of IPL 2016 reveal a marked drop from the corresponding period last year, indicating that the audience has not warmed up to the Twenty20 league like in past seasons. In fact, numbers suggest that this is the second poorest start to any IPL edition following the first week of 2014. The latest numbers released by the new rating mechanism of BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council), which took over from the erstwhile TAM ratings from March, indicate that the IPL, broadcast by the Sony network, had an average TVR (Television Viewership Rating) - a time-weighted figure factoring in the number of viewers and how much time they spent watching - of 3.50 for the first six matches. Game one of the tournament, between defending champions Mumbai Indians and debutant franchise Rising Pune Supergiants, attracted an audience of 3.24. The next match, between Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils, dipped to 2.55. The numbers for the following five matches were 2.98, 3.50, 3.66, 2.86 and 2.23 respectively. This is a significant dip from the same period from last year when the first five matches of IPL 8 were sampled by 105 million unique viewers, which represented a nine percent spike from 2014. While the 2015 IPL opening ceremony attracted dismal ratings of 0.94, the first week of matches attracted an average TVR of 4.5. The first match between KKR and Mumbai was the most watched of the first five games, with a 5.4 TVR, followed by 4.7, 4.5, 2.4 and 5.3.