Stupendous Success of DLF Cup. Zee Sports Dominates Channel Shares
New Delhi, October 10, 2006: Zee Sports India’s first private sports broadcaster today announced that the channel has been dominating the channel shares across all age groups among all cable TV households. Zee Sports recorded a huge television rating of 7.7 in All India Markets for the 2nd One Day International between India and Australia match telecast on, September 22, 2006. During the period, Zee Sports commanded a channel share of 76 % among the sports genre. In the sports genre all the top 10 programs were of Zee Sports during the period.
Commenting on the channel’s performance, Mr. Himanshu Mody, Business Head Zee Sports, said, “Zee Sports strong programming and production values, formidable team of experts and interactive elements excited viewers, and kept them hooked on to our channel during the DLF Cup. Our remarkable presentation of the game attracted viewers and led to high ratings.”
Zee Sports saw a big upside in advertising sales for the DLF Cup between India, Australia and West Indies. The series had made some of the best rates that had been seen in the recent times due to strong production, distribution and innovative programming. The channel tied up with Pepsi, Hero Honda, HLL and Airtel as the presenting sponsors. The associate sponsors for the series were DLF, Max New York Life Insurance and Asian Paints.
Zee Sports produced the telecast of the series using unmatched internal resources, thus creating a history by becoming the first Indian broadcaster to do this. The channel also conducted its studio show, Cricket Café from the stadium in Kuala Lumpur. For commentary it has roped in the likes of Tony Greig, Ian Bishop, Arun Lal, L Sivaramakrishnan, Danny Morrison, Jeff Thomson and Kapil Dev.
Zee Sports in association with dish TV, India’s first DTH provider dishtv, has launched its Sports Active Service during the series. Viewers had the choice to watch the matches through three different camera angles. The viewers also had the opportunity to hear the commentary from a choice of 5 languages feeds comprising of English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam and Gujarati. At present this service is only available to viewers of Zee Sports. Zee Sports is also extending this service to other sports.
Zee broadcasted the DLF Cup matches live on its UK/Europe, Middle East and South Africa beams, thus expanding its international subscriber base. Zee also roped in other broadcasters internationally, in markets such as Singapore, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and others like Echostar in the US, Fox Sports in Australia, Astro in Malaysia, Hong Kong Cable in Hong Kong to name a few to televised these matches. All India Radio carried out live commentary of the matches. On the distribution front Zee Sports increased its penetration as it added around 1500 new operators into the system. The increases in the subscriber base were through new connections. Zee Sports saw a phenomenal increase in viewership even after the telecast of the series due to increase in reach.