Sony rakes in Rs. 1,200 crore advertising revenue from IPL 9

ByArun S Kaimal, SportsCafe Editor

06/05/2016

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Indian Premier League (IPL) broadcaster Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) has raked in Rs 1,200 crore as advertising revenue from the ninth edition of the tournament, a growth of twenty percent from last year. The broadcaster had mopped up Rs. 1,000 crore as advertising revenue in IPL 2015.

"We have had a 20 percent growth in revenue. This was largely based on the change in (advertising) rates," SPN India President Rohit Gupta told PTI. The broadcaster had hiked its advertisement rate by 15 percent for IPL 2016.

Although the ninth edition of the IPL faced a fall in terms of viewership, the broadcaster to the contrary achieved an increase in the advertising revenues. Gupta had earlier said that there was an unprecedented interest from advertisers for IPL 9.

The broadcaster aired the IPL on Sony Max in Hindi, while Sony Six carried the Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali language feeds, besides Hindi. The English feed of the telecast was carried by Sony ESPN and Sony ESPN HD.

Sony has the broadcasting rights of the IPL till the next edition of the tournament in 2017. They also had three presenting sponsors on board this year, and increase from two in the previous season.

"This year, the handset category and the e-commerce categories were the two big ones . Handsets contributed about 23-24 per cent while e-commerce was about 17-18 per cent of our advertising revenues," he said.

Sony also has the telecasting rights of the UEFA Euro 2016 football championship, which will be held in France from June 10 to July 10.

"Football is the next big thing. We have been able to establish a rate of over Rs 2 lakh for 10 seconds for Euro. We have got Gionee as the title sponsor.

"Football is starting to see a lot of traction now amongst advertisers, especially brands which are targeting the youth," Gupta said, reported PTI.

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