IPL 4: Wk 1 - Punjab vs Chennai most followed match on Internet on April 13

While the World Cup 2011 tournament attracted a large number of eyeballs over traditional media and the Internet, the fourth edition of IPL does not seem to be far behind. The excitement is building up and is expected to reach close to the World Cup frenzy. One week into the IPL Season 4 and indications are clear that the sport is being enthusiastically followed over the digital medium. IMRB International’s Web Audience Measurement (WAM), which adopts a panel-based approach to identify trends in Internet usage in India as well as enable better media planning, reaffirms this pattern.

During the first week of the IPL Season 4 (that is April 8-14, 2011), cricket websites attracted a high number of unique visitors. There were 3.73 million Internet users that visited Cricket.yahoo.com; nearly 3 million such users visited Espncricinfo.com, while 1.8 million users visited Ipl.Indiatimes.com.

Such patterns have also been witnessed among daily traffic trends across various websites. Both the websites - Cricket.yahoo.com and Espncricinfo.com attracted a high number of visitors on April 13 at 1.3 million and 1.14 million, respectively.

While certain websites garnered high reach, there are other sites where visitors spent a lot of time. Ipl.indiatimes.com had an overall reach of 1.8 million unique visitors during the first week of the tournament, but had the highest average duration by a visitor. For instance, on April 13, an average visitor spent nearly 24 minutes on the website. This behaviour is mainly guided by the fact that Ipl.indiatimes.com streams live IPL matches. The websites that do not provide live streaming attract larger reach, but not necessarily a longer time span.

The IPL match of Punjab vs Chennai played on April 13 was most followed by the Internet users. The busiest online time slot for this match was between 4 pm and 8 pm. This was followed by the match between Hyderabad vs Bangalore on April 14. As this was a day-night match, the match was followed between the 8 pm and 12 am time slot.

In this edition of the IPL, there seems to be a renewed focus towards offering specialised content tailored for enthusiasts. As the tournament progresses, it is very likely that these websites attract more cricket lovers. As indicated by Tarun Abhichandani, Group Business Director, eTech Group, IMRB International, “The excitement for the tournament is just starting to gain steam on different websites on the Internet. With various websites offering content specifically targeted towards IPL enthusiasts; the online following is bound to grow in the coming weeks.”

WAM is an offering from IMRB International, which provides online publishers, planners and advertisers a common platform to identify trends in Internet usage in India as well as plan for better media planning. The panel based approach adopted by this system has been made possible due to a unique metering technology custom built for Indian market. The meter is capable of capturing internet usage data from multiple machines and still attribute to the same panellist. The meter can capture data from multiple browsers.