IPL: The UK's unexpected smash hit
The expectations of ITV - the broadcaster for the IPL in the UK - were not great when it was offered the rights, but halfway into the tournament, the viewing figures for the channel have been described as "unheard of", says Robin Scott-Elliot in the
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
The expectations of ITV - the broadcaster for the IPL in the UK - were not great when it was offered the rights, but halfway into the tournament, the viewing figures for the channel have been described as "unheard of", says Robin Scott-Elliot in the Independent. The booming UK audience is a measure of the success of the league, but the coverage may not be to everyone's taste, he adds.
In return ITV 4 has garnered an audience that has frequently been more than 10 times its average afternoon viewing figures and often treble the size of its peak-time average. It's money well spent.
The last two Sundays have earned peaks of 563,000 and 530,000 respectively. On that first Sunday, England's Test in Bangaladesh attracted an average audience of 151,000 – ITV 4's average for its nine hours of IPL transmission that day was 297,000. This on a channel that has a usual day-time return of fewer than 50,000, and this for a tournament that averaged 33,000 on Setanta last year.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo