India's historic 3-0 Test victory over Sri Lanka failed to attract viewers, reveals BARC
The recent data released by Broadcast Research Audience Council India (BARC) revealed that the India-Sri Lanka Test series failed to attract ample viewers to witness the series. Meanwhile, the viewers were more interested in viewing the Pro Kabaddi League revealed the recently released trends.
India blanked Sri Lanka 3-0 in the Test series registering a first of its kind on foreign soil. The third Test took the Men in Blue a mere 3 days to overcome the Lankan lions. The series saw a plethora of domestic and international records either been broken or leveled. KL Rahul's seventh consecutive fifty plus score, Virat Kohli's seventh win to overtake MS Dhoni's win tally, and Hardik Pandya's sensational century are just some of the highlights of the series.
However, the series failed to glue the Indian viewers to their seats. According to the recent data released by Broadcast Research Audience Council India (BARC), Star Sports 1 and Star Sports 1 Hindi ruled the TRP charts from the period between August 12 to 18 rather than the Sony pictures network's channels that held the broadcasting rights for the India-Sri Lanka series. The channels were viewed by 20.9 million and 13.05 million people respectively as opposed to Sony Six and Sony Ten 1's viewership of 7.7 million and 7.5 million.
The third Test did wind up in three days and that may have affected the average viewership but the same trends were noticed when India were competing in the first two Tests. The data also suggests a shift in the interest of the Indian audience to the Pro Kabaddi League that is broadcasted on the Star Network.
India's series against Sri Lanka was not the much awaited of the season with analysts not rating it as high as India's upcoming tour to South Africa and England. It would be interesting to see whether India's much-awaited test in challenging foreign conditions draws out the Indian sports fans to their televisions.