The New Discovery of Cricket

Cricket’s emergence as a prime driver of entertainment television in Indiais a relatively new phenomenon. Until 2002, at the time when Set Max first madeits mark with the telecast of the ICC Champions Trophy played in Colombo,cricket was hardly ever covered by non-news and non-sports channels in India.Till then cricket was not entertainment; it was sport, which was profoundlydifferent and had a distinctive sphere of its own. Then came what canjustifiably be termed the Sony revolution. Just like most things novel, theattempt to promote cricket with Ruby Bhatia as anchor in September 2002 was afailure. 

Unlike most novel Indian experiments, however, the plan was persistedwith. And the biggest surprise of World Cup 2003, an even bigger surpriseperhaps than India’s qualification for the final, was the run away success ofthe Mandira Bedi phenomenon. The success was such that during the world cup Maxshowed a 24% growth while rivals like Star lost out on 47% of its viewers. SaidKunal Dasgupta, CEO, Set India, "The Tam ratings for the week ending 15thFebruary reveal that Max was the top channel and garnered the highest channelshare amongst all C&S channels." Statistics showed that for the first timein its history in the week ending 15 February 2003 Max was the top channel witha channel share of 16.8% as against 11.1% of the second placed Star Plus.

What added spice to the Max success was that it had returned excellentratings across all markets and cities. While Calcutta returned a high averagerating of 10.3 for all the seven world cup matches played that week, the ratingsskyrocketed to a spectacular 20.2 during the India-Australia game. Mumbai, Delhiand Chennai all achieved a near 10 rating making the week immensely successfulfor Max. 

As reported by the Max press release issued on 24 February 2003, "Thecricket telecast on Max attracted a whopping 48.6 million C&S individualsacross the TAM markets. Further even before India played its first match, Maxhad already attracted 38.4 million viewers, vindicating the appeal of itscricket presentation to every kind of cricket lover in India, including the diehard purists." 

Extraaa-Innings, Max’s pre, mid and post match wrap around programming,on its own managed to bring in an unprecedented 25.1 million individuals evenbefore India played its first match. This further shot up to 36.9 millionindividuals by the end of Week one of the tournament. 

Interestingly, the cricket coverage also impacted the channel’s overallperformance. During the world cup twenty of the top hundred programs of themonth were from Max. There were four Max programs in the top 20,12 inthe top 50 and 20 in the top 100.

 The success of Max’s cricket coverage also made possible other majorbusiness tie-ups for the channel. As reported by Business Line, thefinancial daily of the Hindu, Aajtak and Sony entered into a tie up onthe eve of the Videocon Super Challenge in Amsterdam in August 2004. Accordingto the tie-up Max was to provide Aaj-Tak access to its commentators and otherpanelists for its half-hour cricket capsule, Runbhoomi. Tushar Shah,Vice-President, Max justified this tie-up suggesting, "This marks a new era inmarketing in the television domain. Max is known for innovation, creativity andattitude, and this tie-up is an example of all three coming together to create awin-win situation for both Aaj Tak and Max."

 Many ask whether this unique blending of entertainment with sport dilutes theessence of cricket. In other words, whether such a blending, which for some isan anathema for the cricket purist, can ever take the game forward. Suchquestions, I wish to suggest, are missing the point completely. As Amartya Senhad mentioned in an interview soon after winning the Nobel Prize, it is notrelevant whether one likes globalisation or not, it is the defining feature ofour age and we have to live with it. It is only pertinent how far we are able totame it to suit our needs. Similarly, after the success of the Set Max brand ofcricket coverage, the important question is no longer whether this form ofcoverage is proper. 

Rather, the question is, or should be, how the nature ofcoverage can be made more interactive — thus widening the ambit of cricketspectatorship. One simple statistic is enough to substantiate the above point. In 2003, most cricket magazines and portals had rallied against the "invasionof the dumb belles" but by the end of the World Cup, Sony’s managersthemselves were surprised by the ratings: 2.2 crore women had tuned in andamounted to a massive 46% of the total viewership. Set Max had successfullybecome the "voice of the cricket-widows". At the same time the die-hardcricket purist had not condemned the Max brand of coverage. As Rajat Jain, asenior Max official had suggested, "A purist is someone who will watch cricketregardless of whether or not India is playing. And remember even before Indiahad played its first match Extraa Innings had reached put to 25.1 millionindividuals. We believe that a majority of them were purists." 

As far as TV advertising was concerned, media buyers suggested on the eve ofthe cup that Sony had already managed advertising worth Rs. 2.1 billion andNimbus, which was commissioned to produce the Extraa-Innings programme hadgarnered 1.3 billion. In fact, a relatively unimportant match like theIndia-Zimbabwe encounter attracted 4760 seconds of advertising. According to thefindings of a TAM-S group, Max had the opportunity to telecast approximately 250commercials in these 4760 seconds. 

Another interesting Sony innovation was the unique blending of Bollywood withcricket. Given that cricket and Bollywood have been crucial in fashioning people’sidentification with a consumerist ethos within a liberalizing society andeconomy, this was a masterstroke. Sony used its feature film Lagaaneffectively to build its mass base on the eve of the world cup. The Sony-Lagaancontest, held during the screening of the film, was promoted with theinteresting catch line, "Watch India vs England on January 26; watch India vsEngland on February 26!". The contest invited viewers to SMS the answer to asimple question from their mobile phones to the designated Sony number or to logon to its website. 

As reported by Indiantelevision.com "the contest promised to take 11 luckywinners to South Africa and enable them to watch the World Cup cricket 2003league match involving the Indians and the English players. Consider thefollowing statistics: a total of 68,000 messages were received during the fivehour period (starting 1 pm) when the movie was screened. There were 29,075correct answers which only showed that viewers-purists and masses-wereparticipating in a big way." 

That Sony was planning this experiment for a long time was already evident inJune 2002 when Sony CEO Kunal Dasgupta justified the company’s $255 millionspending on telecast rights for ICC run tournaments. Dasgupta went on to state,"First and foremost, we want to take the game beyond the male and offer it asfamily entertainment. The programming initiatives that we are working on willtake cricket beyond the boundary and get the families in. There will certainlybe a focus on women in our plans. Secondly, we have to generate interest beyondthe matches India is playing. And we will have to create devices that providefor that."

One possible way of achieving his desired goal, he declared, was by makingthe cricketers more media savvy. "They will need to be groomed accordingly soas to give the proper sound bytes at the proper time. Tiger Woods is not just asporting success story but a marketing one as well and this has been achieved bya great deal of coaching on how he conducts himself." 

Perhaps the best bed fellow, which goes hand in hand with the revolutionarySony brand of cricket coverage, is cricket’s newest avatar, Twenty20cricket. The similarities are indeed palpable—both have raised the eyebrows ofthe purists; both have proved to be runaway successes and both, to go a stepfurther, seem defining aspects of the game's future.

In April 2003 the Daily Telegraph, London, had published a poignantpicture the day after the start of the English domestic cricket season. Asix-column, almost half-page picture, it showed a solitary spectator watchingcounty cricket in an otherwise empty stand. The bottomline was clear. Englishcricket needed new infusion of oxygen to survive with the very existence ofcounty cricket in peril. This oxygen was first supplied on June 13, 2003 at theRose Bowl in Hampshire when Sussex Sharks played Hampshire Hawks.

Nearly 15,000 people enjoyed the action and a new phenomenon in Twenty20cricket was born. Present at the Rose Bowl on that fateful day, I was amazed tosee the high percentage of children who had come along with their parents toenjoy the action. Not many, I must confess, watched cricket. However, they didhave a good time. With games, toys and a concert to follow it was a perfectsummer evening out for the family. Having just watched a few baseball games atWrigley Field in Chicago, home of the Chicago Cubs, it all seemed familiar—themusic, short duration, loud drawling announcements, a little break betweeninnings, two-word alliterating names, frenzied action and, above all, non-stopfun.

Anathema for the cricket purist, it was, simply put, the 'baseballisation' ofcricket. If asked to describe the origins of Twenty20 cricket in a singlesentence, the best answer would be: It was a survival mechanism. The uniqueblending of cricket and entertainment achieved by Set Max in the Indian contextis yet another survival mechanism. 

Most cricket fanatics, leave alone the occasional ones, are saturated by theamount of one day cricket being played. In such a situation it is almostimperative for television broadcasters to introduce new innovations, newertechniques of coverage that will continue to attract eye-balls to the nation’smost perceptible passion. More than making profits, Set Max, it may besuggested, is also entrusted with the duty to ensure that Indians don’t getbored with one day cricket. And women anchors, noodle straps, tarot cards,models amidst the fans are all such innovations, which have successfully madecricket coverage more viewer friendly and more interactive.

That this is the way forward for the future was reiterated by L V Krishnan,CEO of Tam India. Commenting on Entertainment Channel programming, he stated,"There are two learnings that come out of 2003. One is that innovativecontent, well pre-tested before launch, can work wonders…This is what Maxbrought in and even ESPN-Star Sports executed it very slickly. Look at the Shaz & Waz show. Although the matches (were) being played in Australia, they (were)are creating interactivity through mobile…the genres are not going to changedramatically, it is just the way the content is presented that is going tochange."

Finally, it may also be suggested that satellite television in contemporaryIndia is a dynamic realm and these innovations are routine attempts by theindustry to remain plugged in. Knowing full well that the Champions Trophy isgoing to be a high viewership activity, Set Max will surely aim to take cricketcoverage yet another step forward and create an entertainment agenda based oncricket. And if the agenda is smeared with patriotism, it is a sure recipe forsuccess. For even Kofi Annan has acknowledged that it is difficult not to getnationalistic over sport. Commenting on the soccer world cup, the UN SecretaryGeneral declared, "Which brings me to what is perhaps most enviable of all forus in the UN: the World Cup is an event in which we see goals being reached. I'mnot talking only about the goals a country scores; I also mean the mostimportant goal of all—being there, part of the family of nations and peoples,celebrating our common humanity. I'll try to remember that today as Ghana playItaly in Hanover. Of course, I can't promise I'll succeed."

In the contemporary sporting world, few would doubt that India is the newcricketing superpower. It is more often than not that Indians lead, the othersfollow. Without exaggeration, Indian cricket is a mirror in which nations,communities, men and women now see themselves. That reflection is sometimesbright, sometimes dark, sometimes distorted, sometimes magnified. Cricket, aunique metaphorical mirror, is a source of mass exhilaration and depression,security and insecurity, pride and humiliation, bonding and alienation. In fact,for many in India, cricket has replaced religion as a source of emotionalcatharsis and spiritual passion, and, since it is among the earliest of memorablechildhood experiences, it infiltrates memory, shapes enthusiasms, servesfantasies. It may well be that the revolutionary Sony coverage is yet anotherfantasy, which has the power to enamour and also infuriate.

We have already seen that the success of Sony’s entertainment focusedcricket programming has led other Indian news and even sports channels toreplicate the same model. In fact, the strategy—special programming with womenanchors and other innovative attractions have become the standard way ofcovering cricket in India. With cricket across the world in need for infusion ofnew innovations, it is only a matter of time before it becomes the global norm.