Indian Cricket Telecast: It’s Cricket between the Commercials
Ever realized that nearly 50% of your viewing time during a cricket match is taken by commercials. Unbelievable? Just watch a small-unedited clip from today’s India-Pakistan match below (two overs) and see how Indian television viewers are taken for a ride by BCCI and television channels. Some rough statistics from the clip:
Total time for two overs : 677 seconds
Full screen advertisements (between the overs): 12 advertisements – total 252 seconds – each advertisement taking 100 % of your television screen (list)
Overlay/banner advertisements: 5 advertisements – total 31 seconds – each advertisement taking 6.5% of your television screen and up to 11% in one case (list).
Large overlay (the most irritating ones) : 52 seconds in 7 advertisement – each advertisement taking extreme 44% of your television screen (list).
Total advertisement time: approx 280 seconds
Out of 677 seconds, almost 280 seconds taken by advertisements excluding logos, visible hoardings and advertisements on ground itself. In Indian television, it is not the commercials between the cricket but the cricket between the commercials. In India cricket, is all about money honey.
I couldn’t agree more. watching match on tv is frustrating
Great job at analyzing the telecast time. I remember doing a similar thing about the number of minutes of music playing on Vivid Bharati (some 15 years ago – much before satellite tv took over our lives) and my findings were very similar. I hope pay sports TV comes of age and we have Tv options where we do not have to see ads at all… something like what worldspace is doing to music.