National broadcaster Doordarshan (DD) is thinking up ways to improve television ratings or TRPs on the Commonwealth Games.
Doordarshan, which holds the broadcasting rights to the Games, is learnt to have held meetings with TAM Sports in Delhi on Friday on how the telecast can be monitored during the Games. TAM Sports is a division of TAM (TV audience measurement) for monitoring sport sponsorship RoI (return on investment).
Sources pointed out that the Games organising committee had initially engaged in talks with TAM Sports last year on monitoring the event. Apart from content monitoring on DD Sports, scheduling and promotion build-up issues are also being discussed.
Analysts suggested that the first walk-ins (read TV viewing) would be high because of the publicity the Games have received so far, even if it is for the wrong reasons. However, cricket telecast may be a spoiler. While the Commonwealth Games would be staged from October 3 to 14, the India-Australia cricket series would be played between October 1 and 13. This may result in a fall in viewership for the Games, as cricket is seen by more people, TAM India chief executive officer LV Krishnan said.
PSUs to buy airtime
With advertisers hard to come by, oil PSUs have been roped in to bailout public broadcaster Doordarshan - the official telecaster of the 12-day Commonwealth Games. Oil and Natural Gas Corp, Indian Oil Corp and other state-owned oil firms will buy air-time worth Rs10 crore during telecast of the Games. Lack of advertisers has forced Prasar Bharati to halve the revenue target from ad slots during the Games.
