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Our Bureau

Chennai, Aug. 15 Is the Indian viewer slowly but surely looking beyond cricket? Recent viewership figures suggest that there is a growing interest in events like the Olympics.

The reach (number of people who watched the programme for at least 1 minute) of the opening ceremony of Olympics ’08 at an all-India level has been put at 27 million. This is a sharp increase on the 8.6 million people who tuned in to catch the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics held in ’04.

According to a study by TAM Media Research, while the reach of the Cricket World Cup 2007 was far higher at 113 million, what stands out is that the reach of Olympics 2004 at 65 million surpassed another mega international event, the FIFA Football World Cup 2006 at 39 million. While about 8.5 million people tuned in during the opening ceremony of the Olympics 2004, 5.2 million people tuned in during the closing ceremony. But the maximum Indians watched men’s hockey events followed by athletics, while other key events such as tennis and shooting got relatively fewer viewers. According to the study, this shows that the viewership increased whenever there was Indian participation in an event.

The event that mattered the most for Indian viewers during Olympics 2004 was the giant leap by Anju Bobby George! This clearly shows how relevant content can grip not only viewers of an entire nation but also a specific market within the nation, the study says.

It recounts how as Anju Bobby George’s event approached, interest levels started building up not only for all-India viewers but also in Anju’s home state of Kerala. As a result, during the actual course of the jump, viewership shot through the roof all-India and went even higher in Kerala.

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