IPL 5 TVR’s lowest in tournament history

The fifth season of the Indian Premier League began with a opening ceremony that belied expectations – it was poor and uncoordinated. And that was followed up by cricket which wasn’t exactly of the nerve-tingling variety. And that has shown in the manner in which the Television Viewer Ratings have dropped. According to a TAM study, the first 6 matches of IPL 5 averaged 3.76 TVRs; lowest in tournament’s 5 years. TVR measures the popularity of a programme or advert by comparing the number of target audience viewers who watched against the total available as a whole. [caption id=“attachment_272390” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“IPL will need to get it’s act together. AFP”]  [/caption] The matches of IPL 5 also reached 90.1mn viewers – lower than 101.7 mn viewers in IPL 4. The numbers, on their own, may not mean much. Big budget soaps and reality shows would probably be very happy with 3.76 but then they have a much longer run. The IPL, on the other hand, has just two months to work its magic and ensure that they’ve done enough to draw the audience back for next season. The stadiums have been packed and several of them have been houseful too. But what the numbers do indicate is that there isn’t enough in the IPL to make people drop everything else and watch it. Isn’t that what the IPL wanted to do all along? But it’s a long tournament and there will be a chance to turn this around.