It intensified ever since the tournament began with Jio<\/a> claiming it had the viewers, the moolah and the buzz all going for it. But was that really the case till the end?
Disney claims highest-rated playoffs match ever with over 6 crore, while Jio Cinema<\/a> says 3.2 crore concurrent viewers watched the IPL finals. But at the end of the day its always about the moolah.
In a wide ranging and candid exclusive interview with Sanjog Gupta<\/a>, Head of Sports Disney STAR Network we discuss viewership growth to revenue targets and life beyond T20 and if sports on linear TV is still going strong, how long will it remain an outlier? Edited excerpts:
ARIJIT: So straight off, This season of IPL was a first on many counts. It was probably the first time in a long time the TV and digital rights were split. It was also the first time that the split was happening at a time when, thanks to cheap data, we had seen exponential growth of the digital universe in India. So how was it like to compete?<\/strong>
SANJOG: Would it be anti-climactic if I said we didn't want to compete? Look, in the truest sense, our purpose with IPL 2023, much like our purpose with any property on star sports, is to grow it for fans. And the way that we broke it down was. In three parts, we said we have to drive the consideration for IPL at scales never seen before. We have to drive the consideration for IPL on TV at scales never seen before. And we have to drive consideration for IPL on tv on Star Sports at scales never seen before. True. So it was in three layers that we were really challenging ourselves to better what we have delivered over the last five years.
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ARIJIT: I said the word compete because there was a personal angle to it. There were a lot of your ex-colleagues now on the other side, some might even go to the extent to say you were up against your own mentor Uday Shankar?<\/strong>
SANJOG: That's a really interesting question as with cricket, there’s an emotional side to the game, and there is the process slash business side to the game. We had to make sure that we stay focused on what we are looking to deliver. So yes, there are personal angles and there are relationships and relationships which continue to remain strong. The very purpose, mission, and drive around IPL came from an internal challenge that the team posed to itself, that we have built IPL to be the biggest property and have grown it over the last five years and is there scope for us to take it to the next level? Correct. And that is genuinely the only sense of competition that every member of the team had, and which is something I feel deeply overwhelmed by.
ARIJIT: Correct. But the journey began, if I may say, with on a very aggressive pitch, the Jio Cinema or Reliance’s positioning from the first week itself was very clear -- Linear TV is dead, and they were really aggressive about it. Were you initially taken back? And would you say, looking back, you were defensive in the beginning first?<\/strong>
SANJOG: Were we taken aback? Perhaps not so much taken aback, but yes, it played a certain role in actually driving us to commit to that belief. We had from the start a lot more because we had chosen to play the game a certain way and, and to use a cricket analogy, you play to your strengths and we believed the brand of Star Sports, the availability and accessibility of TV around the country and the width of the Star network gave us a foundation which we believed could help us deliver an IPL at a scale never seen before.
ARIJIT: But let me ask you the nub of the issue Is linear TV dead when it comes to live sports in India?<\/strong>
SANJOG: If there was a myth that linear TV was even dying, when it comes to live sport, then that myth has been busted wide open. I will cite a few numbers at last count. The ratings of the finals still to come. we are now at 49.6 core, or 496 million viewers of the live broadcast of IPL. We have crossed 400 billion minutes of consumption which is 40,000 core minutes of consumption. The first number that that I mentioned is the highest viewership that IPL has ever had, which shows the scale of reach for IPL, just in terms of the sheer number of viewers who have logged in.
The second number that I just cited shows the extent of engagement. It is the second highest with the highest being the Covid year when everyone was home and IPL was the only game in town and thus was deeply engaging. So both in terms of reach and access, in terms of how many viewers actually logged into watch and in terms of the depth of their engagement.
We have broken records and set new benchmarks that can't be on a platform that is dying. If anything, we have grown significantly on the back of IPL. Another number, which will surprise many : the growth in viewership for kids below the age of 14 has been 63% compared to last season, which goes to show that not only is I
PL on TV growing and breaking records, but its future is also secure to a large extent.
ARIJIT: You know what intrigues me globally Disney is going underweight on TV and bulking up digital. The Indian strategy therefore looks like an outlier, but for how long can India remain<\/strong>
SANJOG: I think the question around Disney's strategy globally is best answered in the context of different regions that Disney operates in. There are regions where Disney continues to have significant investments in television including the US where ESPN is the leader in sport and happens to be a significant linear platform and in South America and in other parts of the world.
So I think the great thing with Disney globally is that there is no broad brush approach to how they want to do business. It is uniquely catering to the regions and the realities of the region in terms of the media and entertainment ecosystem, as well as where we believe opportunities for growth are and going after those opportunities for growth with a fiscal discipline that ensures the viability of that business case over a period of time.
ARIJIT: You touched upon a very important point, the viability. Now, if TV is. What you're betting on and you want to go strong, double down. The obvious question is why then did Disney or Star sub licence the ICC rights to Zee? That defies logic.<\/strong>
SANJOG: So let me answer this in two parts. One part is, as you said, where we believe growth lies. And the other part is what is the scale of investment to make that growth happen? Combine the two and you get financial viability over a period of time. The strategy with respect to IPL has to do with the nature of the property. When it comes to ICC it comes down to the scale of investment that needed to be made and how pivotal was that property for our TV portfolio compared to how critical was that property for our digital portfolio and what is the right price for that property on that platform. It's not a broad brush approach to both platforms and all properties. A bilateral series may be more valuable for TV than it is for digital. Multilateral property may be more valuable for digital than it is for tv because the two platforms are very different. We are not trying to build a strategy which looks to grow two very different platforms with very different consumer behaviors in the same way, the approach on TV and digital is actually unique based on the property its role in the portfolio. How over indexed or overweight we are on investments in that portfolio on a singular property. And finally, where we believe the genuine growth of that property lies, and on which platform. And all those reasons, our strategy for IPL looks very different from I C C and which may continue to look very different in the future.
ARIJIT: When we talk of growth, has the metro growth plateaued for TV? And as a consequence, are you losing premium consumers, high ARPU consumers to smart devices and digital?<\/strong>
SANJOG: The short answer to that is data suggests we are not. Our reach on HD is at its highest for any IPL till date. We have added more than 11 million subscribers to Star Sports during the course of IPL, and these are paying subscribers. These are not viewers who have been added by virtue of the property being available as wide as possible. We have busted the myth that premium viewers are no longer attracted to TV.
ARIJIT: Let me get to the elephant in [00:20:00] the room. There have been claims that digital revenues for the first time is higher than tv. Straight question, straight answer, yes<\/strong>
SANJOG: or no. I don't know what the revenues are for the digital platform. Okay. So it's hard for me to say if the digital revenues are higher or not. Okay. This is one of those, uh, metrics that's not comparable because frankly speaking, one, both quantities don't disclose, uh, exactly.
ARIJIT: What's the, what's the feedback that you get from the trade?<\/strong>
SANJOG: The feedback from, from the trade has largely been positive. I, I think if you look at how the tournament has gone on, we've seen a significant scale up in the sell through rates for IPL.
ARIJIT: But startups who are big spenders pulled out largely. Lot of belt tightening all across advertisers and advertising spends. Let me ask this directly.. Have you reached your revenue target on year one?<\/strong>
SANJOG: I will answer that in two parts. One, do we believe we have maximized the revenue potential of IPL in a single edition? There is immense head room for growth which means that the viewership, which we have delivered this year, and the records that have been made, give us the ideal launchpad for monetization to grow at a much faster clip than we had initially projected on the back of it.
ARIJIT: Is this a cryptic way of saying could have been better?<\/strong>
SANJOG: It can always be better. Right. Um, do, did we have a hundred percent sell through across the board for all the inventory that was available on IPL? No. But did we have enough sponsors growing, sell through rates and a large number of advertisers, almost a hundred at last count: Yes. We always see potential for growth and thus are seeing this as an opportunity to grow revenues at a faster clip.
ARIJIT: Because some are speculating there's been a 30% revenue shortfall. Your rivals it's actually 50% shortfall.<\/strong>
SANJOG: I think the shortfall with respect to what our targets are is not really one in the domain of the larger ecosystem. And two, it’s a, it's a metric or it's an observation, which to my mind is really not relevant, and I'll tell you why.
One, just in terms of the business viability, because fundamentally the question is, does the business of IPL work for the linear platform. Does it make money for the linear platform, Firstly, it's a five year investment. Which means that the recovery of investment needs to happen over five years.
ARIJIT: But there's a $3 billion meter (Disney -Star bid) that is already running?<\/strong>
SANJOG: Of course the clock is ticking and the first year really sets you up for, for those five years. I think we have set ourselves up really well for those five years by delivering record breaking viewership on one side and reaching a threshold of monetization, which gives us the confidence that once the externalities change, we will be on a really good pathway towards delivering to the business objectives. The second part of this is also, don't forget we have significant affiliate revenue which also accrues to the business and to
IPL. Because subscribers are paying for Star Sports. So ad revenues are only one stream of revenue for us. It is significant, but it is not the only stream of revenue. Typically, ad revenues to affiliate revenues for sports range from anything between 50 to 70% on the ad side. and 30 to 50% on the affiliate side, depending on the property itself. So it is a significant share of the revenue.
ARIJIT: We've spoken a lot about IPL. Now what next? Where does STAR Sports go from here? There is a 50 over ICC World Cup coming up and it's on Star. How are you padding up for that?<\/strong>
SANJOG: I know you are a test match fan, so there's a big test match coming up first. Yes. I don't know why you are choosing to ignore that and go straight to the World Cup. It's an ICC trophy that India can lift after a decade. So I agree. The WTC final is on from the seventh.
We are focused on that now. Yeah. It happens to be on Star Sports and on Disney Plus HotStar. So it's also Cricket coming back to HotStar. After which there is an Asia Cup, which really is the precursor to the World Cup. The event coincides with the festive season. It's also the return of the World Cup to India after 12 years for the ODI. And so while we were executing on our plans for IPL 2023, we were already looking ahead to how we make the Asia Cup and the World Cup, the biggest additions in 2023 of those events, and also how we will deliver to the WTC final.
ARIJIT: How much of revenue dependencies would you link the next two or three mega events that are coming up?<\/strong>
SANJOG: I think it's not fair for me to comment on, uh, revenue dependencies. There is significant revenue riding on the World Cup. Because of the event being at home, during du Diwali, which is the peak, spending period for advertisers. And obviously a favorite for fans. So on all counts that event has significant revenue expectations built in and significant viewership expectations built in as well.
ARIJIT: We have seen an explosion of short videos, attention spans are going down. Does it have a bearing on the way we watch longer version of the match?<\/strong>
SANJOG: If the figures are to be believed, then it has definite bearing on the viewership. Viewing patterns, as you said, are changing and changing dramatically. Having said that, the nature of these two events that you just referred to, one, the World Test Championship final and the other, the ODI World Cup is such that it aggregates viewers at scale.
And it drives a significant increase in the number of sessions that a viewer engages with a game for. So if you were to ask me a general, Broad brush trend around viewing patterns, then yes, longer formats will continue to face a challenge with viewer retention and engagement, but marque events will continue to enjoy the benefit of unmissability and a heightened sense of FOMO attached with those events.
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The BARC data is for Urban + Rural, 2+ target groups including out-of-home (OOH) viewership. The viewership figures don't include the data for the final match between Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans.","thumb":"https:\/\/etimg.etb2bimg.com\/thumb\/img-size-23982\/100686489.cms?width=150&height=112","link":"\/news\/industry\/media\/entertainment\/nearly-500-million-tv-viewers-tuned-in-to-watch-ipl-till-play-off-stage\/100686489"},{"msid":"100679030","title":"Record high viewership for IPL playoffs in 2023, 44% higher YoY","entity_type":"ARTICLE","seopath":"industry\/media\/entertainment\/record-high-viewership-for-ipl-playoffs-in-2023-44-higher-yoy","category_name":"Media\/Entertainment","synopsis":"Disney Star, the official TV broadcaster of Tata IPL announced that the IPL 2023 playoffs broke previous records, achieving a 44% increase in ratings compared to the previous year, surpassing the previous highest-rated playoffs recorded in IPL 2020. Gujarat Titans v Mumbai Indians (Qualifier 2) registers peak TV concurrency of 6.1 crore and is also the highest-rated Playoffs match ever. ","thumb":"https:\/\/etimg.etb2bimg.com\/thumb\/img-size-191320\/100679030.cms?width=150&height=112","link":"\/news\/industry\/media\/entertainment\/record-high-viewership-for-ipl-playoffs-in-2023-44-higher-yoy\/100679030"},{"msid":"100647824","title":"Jio Cinema's penetration jumped 4X on the back of free IPL streaming","entity_type":"ARTICLE","seopath":"news\/sports\/jio-cinemas-penetration-jumped-4x-on-the-back-of-free-ipl-streaming","category_name":"Sports","synopsis":"Latest research shows that Jio Cinema's penetration has seen a massive surge due to their free IPL streaming option. The proportion of new installs to total installs were approximately 72% during IPL 2023 compared to 28% before the IPL season. The research noted that IPL has helped the platform bring in more than two-thirds of the total users of Jio Cinema.","thumb":"https:\/\/etimg.etb2bimg.com\/thumb\/img-size-34156\/100647824.cms?width=150&height=112","link":"\/news\/sports\/jio-cinemas-penetration-jumped-4x-on-the-back-of-free-ipl-streaming\/100647824"},{"msid":"100614983","title":"Mukesh Ambani's JioCinema scores high in IPL 2023","entity_type":"ARTICLE","seopath":"industry\/media\/entertainment\/mukesh-ambanis-jiocinema-scores-high-in-ipl-2023","category_name":"Entertainment","synopsis":"About 32 million concurrent viewers tuned into the free-to-watch airing of the rain-delayed, then shortened, match, said a spokesperson for Viacom18, the joint venture between Ambani and Paramount Global that owns JioCinema. ","thumb":"https:\/\/etimg.etb2bimg.com\/thumb\/img-size-1817277\/100614983.cms?width=150&height=112","link":"\/news\/industry\/media\/entertainment\/mukesh-ambanis-jiocinema-scores-high-in-ipl-2023\/100614983"},{"msid":"100630790","title":"'Record 32 million viewers watched IPL final match on the JioCinema app'","entity_type":"ARTICLE","seopath":"industry\/media\/entertainment\/record-32-million-viewers-watched-ipl-final-match-on-the-jiocinema-app","category_name":"Entertainment","synopsis":"Setting a new streaming record in India and globally, the Indian Premier League (IPL) final between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Gujarat Titans (GT) had 32 million peak concurrent users on Viacom18's JioCinema app. This is the first time a cricket match has breached the 30 million peak concurrency mark in the country. The data has been provided by Viacom18, the official digital streaming partner of the IPL.","thumb":"https:\/\/etimg.etb2bimg.com\/thumb\/img-size-483590\/100630790.cms?width=150&height=112","link":"\/news\/industry\/media\/entertainment\/record-32-million-viewers-watched-ipl-final-match-on-the-jiocinema-app\/100630790"}],"msid":100710002,"entity_type":"ARTICLE","title":"If there was a myth that linear TV dying when it comes to live sport, then that myth has been busted wide open: Sanjog Gupta","synopsis":"Disney claims highest-rated playoffs match ever with over 6 crore, while Jio Cinema says 3.2 crore concurrent viewers watched the IPL finals. But at the end of the day its always about the moolah.","titleseo":"mvas-apps\/if-there-was-a-myth-that-linear-tv-dying-when-it-comes-to-live-sport-then-that-myth-has-been-busted-wide-open-sanjog-gupta","status":"ACTIVE","authors":[{"author_name":"Arijit Barman","author_link":"\/author\/16028\/arijit-barman","author_image":"https:\/\/etimg.etb2bimg.com\/authorthumb\/16028.cms?width=100&height=100","author_additional":{"thumbsize":true,"msid":16028,"author_name":"Arijit Barman","author_seo_name":"arijit-barman","designation":"Journalist","agency":false}}],"Alttitle":{"minfo":""},"artag":"ET Bureau","artdate":"2023-06-02 20:38:37","lastupd":"2023-06-02 20:41:26","breadcrumbTags":["Sanjog Gupta","jio","digital rights","IPL","Disney Star india","viacom 18","Reliance industries","Paramount","Jio Cinema","mvas\/apps"],"secinfo":{"seolocation":"mvas-apps\/if-there-was-a-myth-that-linear-tv-dying-when-it-comes-to-live-sport-then-that-myth-has-been-busted-wide-open-sanjog-gupta"}}" data-news_link="//www.iser-br.com/news/mvas-apps/if-there-was-a-myth-that-linear-tv-dying-when-it-comes-to-live-sport-then-that-myth-has-been-busted-wide-open-sanjog-gupta/100710002">