MUMBAI: With no live sports across the globe, sports broadcasters have been trying alternatives to keep sports enthusiasts engaged by showing the re-runs of archived historic matches of cricket, wrestling, kabbadi and football. This, indeed, has helped sports channels to gain traction, as per the last four-week data of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India.
Though the impressions on these channels are not as good as when live sports matches are broadcasted, sports have definitely turned nostalgic to watch, be it the broadcasting of WWE’s legendary fights of veterans or cricket world cup matches aired by Star Sports.
BARC’s week 11-14 has gradually seen a rise-fall-rise in viewership pattern with week 13 (28 March-3 April) gaining most out of all four. As per the third edition of crisis consumption joint report of BARC-Nielsen, “Sports had surged by 21 per cent in week 13 over the last week on the back of telecast of classic India cricket matches & WWE.”
Star India is the official broadcaster to telecast the re-runs of historic matches, whereas WWE is a property of Sony Pictures Network. Week 14 (4-10 April) of BARC has seen marginal dip by over three per cent in terms of weekly impressions as compared to week 13. The current week is the second-highest in viewership during COVID-19 period all thanks to the re-runs of Cricket and WWE matches.
The first two weeks (Week 11 and 12) were weak for sports broadcasters to garner eyeballs as they were still grappling with the challenges of what to show exactly and how to keep the audience engaged. However, in the following week, Star Sports came up with nostalgic India versus Pakistan world cup matches and Sony put their weight behind a new show called ‘WWE Blockbusters’, a re-run.
Week 12 could be termed as a weakest week among all four weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sports channels during this week fell by around 14 per cent as compared to week 11, but immediately picked up in the following week by gaining at least 32 per cent in terms of weekly impressions.
The fourth edition of the crisis consumption joint report of BARC-Nielsen India says: “Wrestlemania-20 along with Indo-Pak classics led to highest viewership for sports genre during COVID-19 period.” The report shows a week 14 grew by five per cent to 10.3 billion viewing minutes as compared to 9.8 billion viewing minutes in week 13 in India 2 plus category during COVID-18 period.
COVID-19 has not only halted live sports but also the production of film and TV content. Dominating the re-run game, Doordarshan has been leading the pack by bringing back all 90’s hit shows along with two mythological shows such as Mahabharat and Ramayana. Viewers are flocking to TV channels to get nostalgic by watching re-runs.
