Soccer eats into prime time space

NEW DELHI: The month-long soccer extravaganza came to a fitting finale, with the Azzurri dashing French hopes and claiming the coveted FIFA World Cup on Sunday night. And with it all, the speculation over the viewership is finally over. In an exclusive ET-TAM study of all the matches in the first 21 days (till the quarter finals), we map trends in terms of gender, class and age and how the biggest sporting event impacted other genres on the tube.

According to TAM data, the 2006 World Cup attracted 34% women eyeballs, saw an increase in young (15 to 35 years) and lower socio-economic classes viewership. Also, soccer fever helped sports make dents in the Hindi general entertainment category (GEC) prime time share. Sports channels started out with a mere 1% total television viewership share, before the start of the World Cup 2006, to reach a stupendous 31% audience share at the quarter-final stage.

FIFA World Cup 2006 garnered over 20% more viewership, compared to ‘02 for the top 15 matches till the quarter final stage. While in ‘02, the average rating (television rating point) was 2.82, this year it was 3.47. But this does not hold true for the group matches as ‘02 has a greater average rating of 1.4 vis-a-vis 1.29 registered this year. The Brazil versus Australia game took the cake with a TRP of 6.19% over the final-before-the-final Germany versus Argentina quarter final fight, which registered a lower 5.93 rating.

“Despite the fact that forced viewership amongst women is highly prevalent in single TV households, what is noteworthy this year is the interest levels have gone up sharply, with female audiences. In ‘02, it was more of a default women audience unlike this year when women have watched the matches out of interest,” says Anita Nayyar, managing director North India and Pakistan of Starcom Worldwide, a media planning agency.

Almost 70% of the viewership comprised men across match stages in both ‘02 and ‘06. In terms of age group, the 15-35 year olds made up for almost 45% of the overall viewership with a significant chunk also coming from the 35-plus group.

Media planners feel that the 35 plus category mostly comprises 35-40 year olds., the game of soccer gaining popularity amongst women, there is no drastic change in the number of female viewers in ‘06