IPL 2024: A win-win for TV and Digital?

With just two days to go before the start of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, the enduring TV vs Digital debate is raging yet again and conversations about the right marketing mix for the tournament have taken centre stage.  

Digital advertising  in India saw a huge transformation in 2023 with the free streaming of the IPL pulling big brands and big money. During the last season of the annual cricket festival, the combined ad revenues of digital and television were said to be over Rs 4,000 crore. 

As IPL enters its second year of free digital streaming, will it outperform television or will they be neck and neck? Industry experts believe while digital, with smaller ticket size, will attract higher number of brands, TV will be preferred by the brands for its higher recall value.

According to Vanita Keswani, CEO, Madison Media Sigma, there will be a tough fight between digital and television and they could be neck and neck.

“Both mediums have pros and cons for different target groups. It’s dynamic and they could land up neck and neck. All depends on brands & categories that plunge into the IPL,” she said.

According to industry sources and the data available, television ad revenues from the IPL in 2023 fell by around 50% over the previous season, despite a cumulative reach of 505 million viewers, which was 36% higher than the year before.

It is also believed that due to the soft market, both digital and TV suffered revenue decline post the tournament last year.

While some experts say that with the growing popularity of Connected TV, digital is a more sought-after choice for brands, some others feel that television is relatively a better option for advertisers as its audience comes at a cheaper price than digital.

“Brand inclination will be more towards digital as it is growing faster than TV and consumption on digital is also higher. There is an added lever for digital which is Connected TV, which will grow at a faster pace,” Taurani said.

Another industry source, on the condition of anonymity, said that television cannot be underestimated as a medium despite the digital growth and that it has yielded notable success.

He said that mass-market brands or traditional brands choose TV because it gets them the audience at a cheaper price than digital.

Some industry experts share that there is a likelihood of digital staying slightly ahead of television but the latter may outperform itself compared to last year in terms of ad revenues.

With an increased digital consumption, there has been a huge advertiser shift towards digital platforms, particularly for IPL, consequently hitting the television ad revenue in 2023.

However, experts feel that this year could be better for television and it could see a growth of around 8-10 % in terms of ad revenues while digital will stay ahead and see a 10-15% growth.

“From the ad revenue standpoint, last year digital was slightly higher than TV because it was offered free of cost for the first time. Potential growth on TV this year could be slightly better at around 8-10% as last year it saw a decline,” said Karan Taurani, Senior VP, Elara Capital.

In June 2022, BCCI sold the IPL broadcasting rights for a whopping Rs 48,390 crore, splitting into digital and TV packages for the four-year cycle.

Disney Star had won India TV rights of IPL for a bid of Rs 23,575 crore and Reliance-backed Viacom18 (owner of JioCinema) bagged digital rights for Rs 23,758 crore. Prior to that, IPL’s TV and digital rights were exclusively with Disney Star and its streaming platform Disney+Hotstar. Last year, Walt Disney, in its financial report of the quarter ending September 2023, attributed a 21% drop in sports revenue to Star (India).