Tam Media's specialist unit Tam Sports is ready with its second offering, TV Audience & Sponsorship Assessment of IPL Season 2 (Year 2009), after the first one published in April that examined the advertising efficacies that Season One delivered.

Expectedly, comparisones have been drawn from both seasons in the study that attempts to bring out nuances of advertising both in progamme placement and commercials.

Some of the key learnings from the study are:

*The average TVR for IPL 2.0 was 5.6, which was 15% less than in Season 1. Pertinently however, advertisers got more value in Season 2 as commercial break GRPs of host broadcaster MAX moved up 9% to 798 GRPs compared to 732 GRPs in Season 1. A key reason for this being that host broadcaster MAX was far more disciplined and less cluttered in its ad placements in IPL 2.0 than it was in Season 1. It may be recalled that one of the arguments raised by the IPL governing council when the broadcast deal was renegotiated (with threats that the contract would be annulled) earlier this year, was around excessive ad clutter in IPL 1.0.

*Average time spent by the viewing Universe in Season 2 also declined 16% to 5 minutes and 41 seconds compared to IPL 1.0. Was there a direct link here to the shift of the tournament to South Africa? Possibly. 

*Chattisgarh, Mumbai, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh emerged the markets where IPL was most popular.

*IPL has changed the viewers' profile. Normally, cricket has more mass appeal with audiences spread across different strata while both seasons of IPL saw more viewers from SEC A & B.

*Both seasons of IPL saw a significant rise in Hindi movies viewership (13% average to 23% during IPL 2.0). Interestingly, MAX and rival Zee Cinema both drew benefits from Season 2. While MAX managed to hog most of the viewership in the day parts (pre-match times), it was Zee Cinema that hooked more viewers after the games ended. Zee Cinema's strategy of focusing on male skewed film titles in their night slots throughout the duration of the tournament paid rich dividends. It was these two channels that took the lion's share of viewership during the tournament

*Total 625 hrs of advertising seen (in stadia, on screen and commercial breaks) during Season 2, which was 30% more than IPL 1.0 (482 hrs). Number of brands were however less
 than Season 1.

*More than 60% share was comprised by in-stadia, followed by on-screen and commercials. Commercial advertising increased 10% in Season 2. This was due to the strategic breaks during the match, an advertiser driven addition that was not there in IPL 1.0.

*Maximum growth was seen in in-stadia advertising, which increased 74% over Season 1.  

TAM Media CEO LV Krishnan offered his thoughts on the key ROI metrics the television audience measurement agency looked at while putting together the study:

1. Dimensions of incremental advertising opportunity. Going forward the aim being to arrive at a standardisation of media exposures opportunity.

2. Bring into account list of advertisers in stadia and on screen. Genesis of new advertisers coming in.

3. Values of PR exposure analysed.

4. Celebrity value ads - Involvement of stars creating additional brand value / exposure / PR

According to Krishnan, going forward, when there is a stronger information database to draw from, these studies would be able to offer much more refined analyses:

1. Will long term associations lead to higher brand saliency and therefore benefit brands that take a long view position on the property?

2. Valuation of the different properties. What kind of valuation can you put on different brand exposure platforms.

3. Relative overall buzz - Advertising + On ground + PR + Celeb Associations + Sponsorships... How are the deliverables analysed or judged?