India: an Olympic nation
Once hopeless losers at the Olympics, now a contender for medals at the 2012 London Games, India’s changing status as a sporting nation is being reflected by its television channels. Most leading national news channels in India are preparing to roll out ambitious programming during the 27 July-12 August event, and have signed on former athletes as experts and commentators, a move usually reserved for cricket coverage.
“Before we won medals at the 2008 Olympics, the only reaction Indians had towards Olympic sports was one of cynicism,” said Gaurav Kalra, sports editor at CNN-IBN, one of the top English news channels. “Now there is a lot of positivity, a lot of interest, and our coverage has to reflect this.”
CNN-IBN has eight athletes, two of whom are still active, on its expert panel for the 2012 Olympics. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the channel had none on contract. Rival channel NDTV 24x7, which also did not use experts during the 2008 Olympics, will have four former athletes in its studios this time. It’s in talks to sign on a fifth guest who is a former European athlete.
“We saw how berserk people went when we won medals in 2008,” said Nikhil Naz, cricket editor at NDTV. “We spent hours and hours covering Abhinav (Bindra), Sushil (Kumar) and Vijender (Singh). So this time, we are prepared.”
The Beijing Games was a landmark event for Indian athletes. Sushil Kumar won a bronze in wrestling, India’s first medal in the sport in 56 years; Vijender Singh won a bronze in boxing, India’s first; and shooter Abhinav Bindra won India’s first gold in an individual sport.
“Corporate sponsorship also changed after that,” said Kalra. “We’ve got more sponsors than ever for our Olympics shows. Corporate sponsorship for athletes has also started coming in if you look at the work Sahara or Mittal Champions Trust is doing. So, yes, there’s change on all fronts.”
Boxer Akhil Kumar, who is on the panel for CNN-IBN, said the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG), held in New Delhi, had a large role to play in this changing perception of multi-sport events in India.
“Whether you look at the negatives or the positives, there is no doubt that the Commonwealth Games had a massive impact on people,” Kumar said. “How many people had any awareness of sports other than cricket before that? Who knew about the Asian Games or the Commonwealth Games?”
In some ways, the 2010 CWG was also a testing ground for Indian news channels on how to cover a multi-sport event.
“Heavy coverage was necessary for the CWG since it was at home,” Kalra said. “We needed to get in a panel of experts then, too, something we had not done for multi-sports events before.”
Aaj Tak, India’s leading Hindi news channel in terms of viewership, will also introduce a panel of four experts for coverage of the Olympics for the first time.
“But this decision is not based on viewership,” said Supriya Prasad, executive editor at Aaj Tak. “We covered the CWG extensively, but got very little viewership. But based on our perception of the general interest in the Olympics, we will cover that extensively, too.”
Naz said NDTV has seen encouraging viewership numbers for its Games previews.
“The ratings are above the channel average,” he said. “In fact, our cricket show and our Olympics show have given us the same kind of viewership numbers. But cricket is still the only sport that brings in viewers throughout the year. For the rest, it’s just before big events like the Olympics.”
Viewership for cricket though has taken a hit in recent months—the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in April-May registered a sharp fall in the number of people who watched the matches, according to TAM Sports, a unit of TAM Media Research Pvt. Ltd. The average television viewer rating (TVR) for the first six matches was 3.76, compared with IPL4, which had a rating of 4.63. TVRs reflect the percentage of viewers watching a programme at a particular time. After 68 matches, roughly halfway through the tournament, the numbers remained low, at 3.27. It is perhaps telling that neither NDTV nor CNN-IBN will be sending their journalists to cover the Indian cricket team’s tour of Sri Lanka, which coincides with the 2012 Games.
“I think the interest in big-ticket cricket tournaments is still as high as ever,” said Kalra. “But there’s definitely less following for minor tournaments.”
This newfound interest in covering multi-sport events also augurs well for former athletes as a source of income. Until recently, only ex-cricketers were invited to be TV pundits.
“It just goes to show that the media is taking Olympic sports very seriously,” said Geet Sethi, a six-time world professional billiards champion, and a part of CNN-IBN’s panel. “Without specialists, how can you talk about or understand the subtleties of a sport? This is a natural progression since our athletes have started doing well at an international level.”
Sethi is also co-founder of Olympic Gold Quest, a not-for-profit organization that helps India’s Olympic athletes with funds and expertise. Olympic sport experts though will have to wait much longer for parity in payment when compared with former cricketers.
“Peanuts, no comparison,” said Naz when asked to compare the remuneration for former cricketers and former Olympians. “If you break it down to per day’s pay, the Olympians will get a tenth of what our cricket experts get.”
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