New Delhi, Jun 17 : With their unprecedented interest in the Fifa World Cup, women are striking at another stereotype: the dependence of big sporting events on male viewership.
Every third television viewer in India rooting for Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi or Wayne Rooney during the first week of the soccer tournament happens to be a woman, says rating agency TAM.
“The popularity of football is growing exponentially among a certain section of Indians, including women," says Madison Media Plus CEO Basabdutta Chowdhary.
The number of women glued to their TVs to watch soccer nearly matches their presence during cricket contests. Women made up nearly 38% of the total TV audiences who followed cricket tournaments such as Indian Premier League, World Cup T20 and World Cup cricket in 2007 compared to 33% for the early set of Fifa 2010 matches.
The surfeit of women among TV audiences has surprisingly gone unnoticed though, especially by marketers.
"There is a spillover in women viewership because India largely has single-television homes. This is the reason why despite a significant number of women watching sports, not many advertisers want to target them in sports channels,” said Ms Chowdhary.
Even with the surging presence of women, the first five matches of the World Cup have seeded an average television rating point (TRP) of around 1 across the country against 1.3 in the last edition. Likewise, the opening match between South Africa and Mexico garnered a TRP of 1.5 compared to 2.3 for the first match four years ago.
The highest viewership of 1.6 was recorded during the match between Argentina and Nigeria, says the TAM survey on viewers above the age of 4 in the cable and satellite television homes across India. Assam, West Bengal and Kerala drew the highest number of viewers for these matches. Assam topped with 5.6 on the TRP chart with Kerala and West Bengal following at 4.2 and 4.1.
Still, media buying companies were unfazed, saying their advertising clients have seen the ratings in a positive light.
"Going by the current standards, this is a very good opening for Fifa matches," said Ashish Bhasin chairman-India and CEO South East Asia of media buying firm Aegis. Ratings this time cannot be compared to the last edition of the world cup as viewership has become fragmented since then, he said.
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