Time was when a one day international (ODI) cricket match between India and Pakistan on a Saturday evening during the festival season would be the pride and joy of the broadcaster and mean a day of losses for other channels.
That was before the 20-overs-a-side game, or T20, took guard and began to hit ODIs, 50 overs a side, out of the ground.
As India capitulated to Pakistan in the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa on Saturday, just about enough television viewers tuned in to give the match an average rating of 2.8 on STAR Cricket, according to overnight television ratings agency aMap.
That is a sharp fall from the 4-4.5 garnered by any ODI involving India in the recent past.
Sports broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports, the broadcaster for the ICC Champions Trophy, is targeting Rs 200-220 crore (Rs 2-2.20 billion) in advertising revenue from this tournament.
The future of ODIs look to be under a cloud if you compare the ratings with T20's. Even a non-India match like the final of the T20 World Cup between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in May generated an average rating of 3.7.
But it was the final of a tournament, one might argue. But then the group match between India and West Indies got 5.2, making it the most watched match of the tournament.
Even when one looks beyond international events and on to the Indian Premier League, ODIs still seem to be losing out. The 59 matches of IPL-II during April-May garnered an average rating of more than 4 on SET Max, according to aMap data.
The four Champions Trophy matches before the India-Pakistan tie generated average ratings that were 0.6-0.8 lower than those of any major cricket tournament in the recent past, including IPL-II and the T20 World Cup.
Expectedly, advertisers are all aflutter. The 40-50 of them that together put more than Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) every year in buying time on cricket broadcasts on private sports channels, are looking at putting more in Twenty20.
"While IPL-II generated over Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion) in ad revenue for SET Max, the forthcoming Airtel T20 Champions League may generate over Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.50 billion) for ESPN, much more than what it expects from the ongoing Champions Trophy," says an IPL executive.
Sensing a lower rating for the Champions Trophy, some advertisers on STAR Cricket have already inserted safeguards in their contracts with the sports channel.
"A lower rating of ODI matches in the ICC Champions Trophy is alarming for advertisers. However, most of the big spenders on cricket have done their deals on the basis of cost-per-rating points. If the ratings are lower, the advertisers pay less," says a senior media planner who did not wish to be identified.
There is, however some hope for ODIs if you look at public broadcaster Doordarshan, which gets to show so-called events of national importance -- for some reason, these include cricket matches -- regardless of which channel holds the rights.
As India lost to Pakistan on Saturday night, Doordarshan emerged the winner with an average viewership rating of 3.7, says aMap data.
