Early viewership trends for ICC Champion's Trophy, suggest a high patronage for the sport, and the channel - MAX. The first match involving Indian team recorded a high 9.3% TVRs in 4 metros, amongst male TG. Trends for non-India matches too look healthy.

But has the programming strategy, dubbed Extraaa Innings, to lure 'non-core' women audiences paid off.

Lets begin by looking at the absolute ratings for the first 10 matches*. Surely, MAX has done well to attract audiences.

The India vs Zimbabwe match drew a high 9.3% TVRs across the top 4 metros amongst males. Amongst women, the viewership was 6.0%. This would match some of the highest rating soaps on Zee and Sony. Refer Chart 1.

Chart 1: How viewership for 10 matches stacks up

TG: Male, 15-44 Yrs, C&S HHs
Market: Average ratings for Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai

Looking at this chart, one may draw a conclusion that MAX has been able to draw 'extra' women viewers. We however, indexed the performance of Male Vs Female ratings for telecasts on MAX and compared it with similar index for recent NatWest matches on ESPN. Read detailed note on methodology below.

The analysis would indicate if MAX has really been able to generate special interest amongst female by roping in film stars, VJs and changing the CricketSpeak.

Refer Chart 2 for a comparison on matches featuring Indian team. There seems to be not much of a difference except for Chennai where MAX has been able to score over ESPN substantially. The data suggests that for both MAX and ESPN, average ratings for the total match amongst Women TG was about 60% of what they were amongst males. In other words, if TVRs for males were say 10%, then the corresponding figure for women was 6% (or 60% of male ratings).

However, since the data for India matches is available for only one day, it might be difficult to draw conclusive evidence.

Chart 2: Women audience Index - For India match.

For 'Non India' matches (data for 9 such matches is available), the data suggests that female audiences have no significant skew towards MAX programming. Refer Chart 3.

In Mumbai, for instance, while average female viewership was close to 50% of male viewership (across all 9 non-India matches) in case of MAX, the comparative figure was a much higher 78% for ESPN. Ditto for Calcutta and Chennai. Data suggests that in all three places, ESPN had higher average build up amongst women. In Delhi, however, MAX was ahead. Read detailed note on methodology below.

Chart 3: Audience Index - Non India matches

* TVR Data available at the time of publishing this Analysis includes only the first 10 matches.

Note on Methodology:
To compare the male and female viewership across two channels, we used the index that denotes female viewership as a percentage of male viewership. So if the index is 60% in chart 2 above, it denotes that female viewership is 60% of male viewership.

For creating the index, we used the cumulative TVRs (for the total match time) for all matches under a category. For example, in chart 3 above, the index is prepared after adding TVRs of 3 'non India' matches played for NatWest series and 9 such matches played for ICC Trophy. The cumulative TVRs have been used for the index, as TVRs cannot be averaged owing to different match durations.