Women viewers and cheerleading

dcsiva — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:10:00 GMT

Does anyone remember the effect Mandira Bedi had on Set Max's women viewership? Politicians and therefore the police are getting concerned about cheerleaders:

Some politicians say the cheerleaders are "vulgar and obscene".
Mumbai police say they will be checking that the cheerleaders' performances do not violate entertainment licences.
The cheerleading girls, wearing short skirts and low-cut tops, have been hired from around the world to perform during the matches which are also being heavily endorsed by leading Bollywood stars.

Might this be the reason why cricket needs cheerleaders? The IPL is certainly drawing in more women viewers:

No less than 36 per cent of the television viewership for the first two matches played on April 18 and April 19 was contributed by women, according to TAM Media Research. All told, 8.2 million women in six metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore) watched cricket on television those nights, giving serials the miss.
For long, media planners have lived in the belief that women do not watch sports on television and prefer soap operas and films. Accordingly, women-only brands choose not to advertise on sports channels.

Ratings and big money

dcsiva — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:01:00 GMT

The Economic Times reports that the IPL is doing very well in television ratings, perhaps because it's really a reality show?

Equating IPL to a ‘reality show’, Vodafone marketing head Harit Nagpal said: “We invested in IPL anticipating such ratings. The format is such that it combines the largest reality show in this country backed by Bollywood entertainment.” Commenting on the sustainability of the event, Mr Nagpal said: “I’m sure people who have stakes in the game will do everything possible to make it work.”

D.S. Henry has his usual thoughtful daily round-up of people to watch out for. Srikanth writes about the lack of big pay-offs for all that money that was thrown around on individual players:

In general, the big money winners have not recorded anything out of the ordinary yet barring possibly McCullum and Ishant Sharma. On the contrary, some of the icons have been more of an embarrassment to their respective teams. Captains of Royal Challengers and Deccan Chargers come to mind.

And Samir Chopra suggests that it's too late in the day for him to generate an interest in watching Twenty20 cricket:

I wouldn't begrudge the new generation of cricket fans the opportunity to develop an entirely new set of dreams, fantasies and hopes, all centered around a different version of the game. All I can do is hope that test cricket will not be completely annihlated by this form.

Cover Points : ratings

Women viewers and cheerleading

Ratings and big money