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"Maruti and Samsung are the presenting sponsors, while there
are six other (associate) sponsors. Over the last three to four
weeks, we have fully booked the tournament and have been able to
raise the benchmarks in terms of rates,” Sony Entertainment
TV India’s ad sales and revenue management head Rohit Gupta
said, adding that the company had been out in the market selling
spots for the last three months.
Gupta further added that Sony used the cricket World Cup, instead
of the last Champions Trophy in 2002, as a benchmark. “The
World Cup is what we look at and our ad rates are higher than that,”
he said, claiming that when Set Max airs cricket, it is bigger than
the others.
"When India and Pakistan played on Max it gave a rating of
23-24. We package Extra Innings to attract new viewers. Most
channels do not market cricket (though ESPN Star Sports may have
different view on it). We do marketing activities like gully cricket
with Mandira Bedi. That is the value advertisers see, " Gupta
pointed out.
Another factor that helped SET India in selling out sponsorships
for Champions trophy was that Max had, in the past also, managed
to attract ratings for non-India cricket. The bar had been raised
to over four in the ratings. Before the World Cup it was 1.5. During
the World Cup in South Africa last year in February and March across
54 matches it was 6.5.
The Holland Tourney in August for which Max recently acquired the
rights will be sold separately. The attraction is in having the
three top
teams in the world, India, Australia and Pakistan, play. "This
has never happened before. The rates here will be even more than
the Champions Trophy. It will as big as the India-Pakistan series
in terms of viewership. It is not some small tournament that will
lead to the Champions Trophy," Gupta said.
As far as AXN and HBO are concerned, Gupta said that the ad rates
for the channels had gone up by 15 per cent and had been going up
over the past four quarters.
“AXN is really rocking well with shows like Fear Factor
and Guinness World Records. Youngsters are increasingly taking
to the reality genre. AXN's (ratings) deliveries are higher than
MTV and Channel (V),” Gupta said.
Gupta is also gung ho about the proposed India-Pakistan Challenge
on AXN. “We are currently closing deals with sponsors and would
be having loads of promotional activity around this. We will shortly
reveal the kind of sports involved as well as the cities we will
visit". Gupta further admitted that Animal Planet and Nickelodeon
were not significant contributors to the ad revenue kitty.
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