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IPL & Rs 3,300 crore revenue: Thoughts to ponder

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MUMBAI: Can an Indian broadcast TV network imagine that it could gross $600 million in revenue– that is about Rs 4,200 crore – in one day?

That would indeed be the day.

The fact is the Murdoch-owned and run Fox did earn that from 100 advertisers on Sunday 2 February 2020 when it aired the NFL’s SuperBowl match between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. It did attract an audience of 150 million, which watched the pre-game coverage, the game, the electrifying half time performances by Latino bombshells Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, the post game discussion in the studio, followed by the factual show The Masked Singer.

Speaking at an investment analyst post earning conference call Fox executive chairman & CEO Lachlan Murdoch said: “We surrounded the Super Bowl with an immersive and innovative programming lineup from Miami across Fox Sports, Fox News, Fox Sports 1 and our local stations. And we use this enormous platform to launch Season 3 of the Masked Singer right after the game which became TV's highest rated reality telecast in eight years. We delivered extraordinary ratings for our advertising, distribution and NFL partners.”

In India, the big events that aggregate audiences are the IPL and any cricket match that the Indian team is involved in. IPL 2019 delivered 462 million viewers on the Star network channels between 23 March and 12 May, according to BARC data.

So, the NFL had a 150 million strong audience, generating $600 million in rvenue for Fox. That's a realisation of $4 or around Rs 300 –  per viewer. Ad spots on the NFL SuperBowl cost about $175,000 per second, with a 30-second spot costing as high as $5 million plus. According to measurement company SpotTV,  the cost per lead (CPL) for the NFL SuperBowl 2018 was between $27 and $100 on game day. Seems high, but advertisers obviously think its worth as this is the day America worships.

The IPL, according to media reports, generated around Rs 2,200 crore for Star India in 2019, with a cumulative TV audience of 460 million. Now let’s apply the $4 average realisation in revenue per viewer that the NFL managed to get from advertisers and other partners to this audience. It works out to a whopping $1.8 billion or Rs 12,300 crore.

But you might say we are being silly, that we are extrapolating a highly developed US ad and TV market to an emerging market like India. Right. Let’s shave that to a $1.50 per viewer, which is what we think it should be, it still works out to a jawdropping $690 million or Rs 4,918-odd crore. You might again say we are bonkers once again. Let’s bring it further down $1 per viewer – it tots up to $460 million or Rs 3,300-odd crore. Currently, the IPL is generating around 60 odd cents per viewer.

Can that be pushed up to $1 per viewer? That's something Disney and Star India head honchos Uday Shankar and K Madhavan are betting on. So far, advertisers and agencies have not been valuing the IPL and its audiences enough. Remember, the IPL was valued at around $6.8 billion last year. Its valuation will go up undoubtedly this year. Currently, advertisers are paying between Rs 10-15 lakh per 10-second spot (barely $13,000 to $20,000 as compared to the $175,000 per second for the NFL SuperBowl) during the IPL.

Star India paid $2.55 billion to acquire the rights to the IPL in 2017 for five years.  At that time, it spent around Rs 54.5 crore per match. Add production and promotional costs, it would have to recover anywhere between Rs 60-75 crore per match.

Something has to change on ad spends in India. The thinking amongst brand and marketing managers, media buyers and planners needs to undergo a revision, a refresh. Going for the lowest price, slashing media rates, need not get you the best results. As the saying goes: you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Some media planners and brand managers say they buy clever and they buy cheap and they get their return on investment.

Sure. But premium content costs. The IPL set back Star India by some Rs 16,347 odd crore for five years. That means it has to recover around Rs 3,500 odd crore from advertising and subscription revenues each year. So far, it has had a gap in the first three years. But that has not deterred it from taking the television component of the IPL up a notch each year.

Star India’s Uday Shankar is focusing on consumer experience and delight. The network has invested in raising the standard of the quality of production, providing more language feeds. Thankfully that has been accompanied by drastic improvements in the quality of play in the various matches, as well as the competition becoming interesting.

But all this has to be monetised, right? The economic slowdown has led to cuts in ad spends. And when advertising is down, the visibiliy of those who dare to advertise goes up. And they end up capturing consumer mind space.

This year, the IPL presents advertisers with a great opportunity. Indian cricket has been shining over the past few months, snatching impressive victories. And cricketers like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, and KL, Rahul, Jaspreet Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Ravinder Jadeja have been in top form. They will be playing for various teams in the IPL. They have taken the fight to the enemy camp and won handsomely in some matches. Expect them to continue in the same vein in the IPL as well.

We keep talking about how India is set to emerge as one of the world’s leading economies. Yes, it has its own peculiar way of conducting business, which is so very Indian. But slashing costs, taking ARPUs down and playing the mass game is not the only mentality that should come in play. Opening one’s wallet and investing for the now and the future would definitely make sports TV broadcast rights more viable. 

iWorld

Netflix celebrates a decade in India with Shah Rukh Khan-narrated tribute film

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MUMBAI: Netflix is celebrating ten years in India with a slick anniversary film voiced by Shah Rukh Khan, a nostalgic sprint through a decade that rewired how the country watches stories. The campaign doubles as both tribute and reminder: streaming did not just enter Indian homes, it quietly rearranged them.

Roll back to 2016 and television still dictated schedules. Viewers waited weeks, sometimes months, for favourite films to appear on prime time. Family-friendly filters narrowed options further, and piracy often filled the gaps. Then Netflix arrived, softly but decisively, carrying a catalogue of international titles rarely seen in Indian theatres and placing them a click away. Old blockbusters and new releases suddenly coexisted on the same digital shelf.

The platform’s real inflection point came in 2018 with Sacred Games, a breakout series that refused to dilute India’s grit for global comfort. Audiences embraced its unvarnished tone, signalling readiness for stories that did not need box-office validation or censorship compromises. What followed was a steady procession of relatable narratives. Competitive-exam anxiety fuelled Kota Factory. College relationships unfolded in Mismatched. Everyday pressures, not grand spectacle, proved bankable.

Language barriers thinned as foreign series arrived with Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubbing, expanding viewership beyond urban English-speaking pockets. Marketing mirrored the shift. For global releases such as Squid Game, Netflix leaned on regional creators and influencers to localise buzz and make international content feel native.

The library widened beyond fiction. Documentaries stepped out of festival circuits into living rooms. Stand-up comedians found scale. Established filmmakers, including Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Heeramandi, embraced the platform’s long-form canvas. Subscriber numbers swelled to 12.37 million in India, according to Demandsage, and behaviour followed suit. Late-night binges became routine. Friday release rituals loosened. Watch parties turned solitary screens into social events.

Economics demanded adjustment. Early subscription pricing carried a premium aura that deterred many households. Over time, Netflix recalibrated plans to align with Indian spending sensibilities, conceding that accessibility is as critical as content. To extend momentum around marquee titles, the platform also experimented with split-season releases, stretching anticipation and watch time.

The anniversary film, narrated by Shah Rukh Khan, captures the linguistic shift that mirrors the cultural one: from “Netflix pe kya dekha?” to “Netflix pe kya dekhein?” The question moved from recounting the past to planning the next binge. In ten years, Netflix morphed from foreign entrant to familiar fixture, exporting Indian stories abroad while importing global ones home. The remote no longer waits; it chooses, clicks and moves on. In the streaming age, patience is out, playlists are in, and the next episode is always one tap away.

 

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e-commerce

Tulasi Mohan Padavala elevated to Associate Director at Blinkit

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Gurugram: Blinkit has elevated Tulasi Mohan Padavala to associate director, capping a three-year climb inside the quick-commerce firm and signalling confidence in an executive steeped in ecommerce, category management and on-ground sales execution.

Padavala shared the update publicly, saying he was “happy to share” the promotion, a succinct announcement that nevertheless marks a notable step up within one of India’s fastest-moving delivery platforms. The new role follows nearly three years at Blinkit, where he most recently served as senior category manager from February 2023 to January 2026, focusing on strategic sourcing and assortment planning.

The promotion places Padavala in Blinkit’s mid-to-senior leadership tier at a time when the company continues to expand its rapid-delivery footprint and sharpen category economics. His brief tenure as associate director began in January 2026, with responsibilities expected to span category growth, supplier strategy and cross-functional execution.

Before Blinkit, Padavala spent a short but intensive stint as global ecommerce manager at Wholsum Foods, the parent of Slurrp Farm and Millé, between November 2022 and February 2023. There he worked on digital marketplace expansion and online retail operations, adding a direct-to-consumer and international ecommerce layer to his résumé.

A longer stretch at Amazon shaped much of his cross-border commerce experience. As business development manager for Amazon’s India Global Selling programme from February 2021 to October 2022, Padavala helped Indian D2C brands enter the North American market. His remit ranged from seller recruitment and category revenue management to coordination with industry bodies, regulators and logistics partners. Key outcomes included launching more than 50 D2C consumable brands in the United States, driving a cumulative gross merchandise sales figure of $1m in FY21-22, tripling sales for participating brands during Prime Day through marketing and visibility levers, growing the monthly recurring revenue of more than 10 newly launched sellers from zero to an average $20,000 each, and negotiating ecommerce partnerships that reduced initial launch costs by 20 per cent.

Padavala’s earlier career was forged in the field rather than the dashboard. At Coffee Day Group, he spent close to five years across multiple sales leadership roles. As sales manager in the Greater Delhi Area from July 2019 to January 2021, he led vending-machine and consumables sales for small and medium enterprises with a team of more than 15 assistant and territory sales managers, managed over 2,000 clients, drove upselling and cross-selling, maintained channel partnerships and ensured timely collections. Prior to that, he served as area sales manager in Delhi between May 2018 and June 2019, handling south and east Delhi markets, and earlier in Hyderabad from April 2016 to May 2018, where he led Andhra Pradesh sales for the vending division, supervised service and logistics functions and managed a base of more than 600 machines with a four-member team.

His professional arc began with internships that combined analytics and process improvement. At Boehringer Ingelheim in 2015, Padavala analysed the impact of brand extension on the drug Pradaxa, identified key performance indicators through market research and assessed sales forecasts, recommendations that drew positive responses in pilot studies. Earlier, at Genpact in 2014, he automated manual sales-order backlog reporting using VBA and Excel, increasing efficiency by 800 per cent, and worked on benchmarking metrics within supply-chain planning processes.

From automating spreadsheets to scaling cross-border ecommerce and now steering quick-commerce categories, Padavala’s trajectory tracks the evolution of India’s retail economy itself. Blinkit’s bet is clear: blend data, discipline and delivery speed. The promotion formalises what his career already suggests. In the race for instant commerce, experience that moves from warehouse floors to global dashboards is no longer optional. It is the engine.

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e-commerce

Bharatpe plays a super over as Rohit Sharma fronts T20 push

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MUMBAI: When the stakes rise and seconds matter, even payments need a match-winning finish. That’s the cue for Bharatpe, which has rolled out Super Over, a nationwide campaign led by Indian cricket captain Rohit Sharma, timed neatly ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

The campaign draws a straight line between the pulse of cricket and the pace of everyday digital payments. A new brand film taps into India’s emotional bond with the game, while positioning UPI as the quiet hero that keeps daily transactions ticking along at match speed.

As part of Super Over, users making payments via Bharatpe UPI can bag daily rewards ranging from match tickets and signed merchandise to a chance to watch a T20 World Cup fixture alongside Rohit Sharma himself. Both consumers and merchants are also assured Zillion Coins on every eligible transaction, adding a little extra sparkle to routine payments.

Behind the scenes, Bharatpe is also batting for safety. The platform is backed by Bharatpe Shield, a fraud-protection layer designed to offer enhanced security, comprehensive coverage and dedicated support aimed at helping users transact with greater confidence as digital payments scale up.

Announcing the campaign, Bharatpe head of marketing Shilpi Kapoor said Super Over mirrors the aspirations of everyday Indians, combining speed, security and instant rewards to make UPI transactions feel both reliable and rewarding.

The campaign will play out across digital platforms, social media and on-ground activations nationwide, staying live through the T20 World Cup season proof that in cricket, as in payments, timing is everything.

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