With 10 days to travel for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020, Star India has sold almost 85-90% of its total television advertising inventory at a premium rate and is on its verge of making it a bumper season. Riding on the high demand, the broadcaster is about to earn 15-20% more in television advertising revenue compared to last year.

A top media planner told BestMediaInfo.com that the entire television advertising revenue Star India is probably going to form this season would be a minimum of 15% a quite last year. If the remaining inventory is sold at a good more premium at the eleventh hour, the gain might be quite 20%. “For Star India, it’ll be one among the simplest IPLs. The rates had increased in March and that they haven’t offered any discount. they’re selling at an equivalent rate,” the planner said.

“There is no slowdown when it involves IPL. Brands have picked up inventory like hotcakes. they’re already paying 25-30% more over the last year, albeit they need to reduce the entire quantity of ad inventory,” said another leading media planner.

When IPL was announced, the media observers had estimated that Star India could clock somewhere between Rs 1,500 crore and Rs 1,700 crore as ad revenue across television and digital, which was 20-30% but last year’s Rs 2,100 crore plus ad revenue.

This year, while television is about for record ad revenue this season, an equivalent couldn’t be true for digital despite brands lining up for advertising rights on Disney+Hotstar also.

“The issue with digital is that they need to make it subscription-based and perhaps there’ll be disturbance with Jio. Hence, brands are being careful on the digital front. Disney+Hotstar could be getting to grow subscription revenue but this may pull advertising revenue down,” said a media observer.

BestMediaInfo.com had last week reported that Star India has already 13 sponsors on board for IPL 2020. The broadcaster has signed Dream11, Phone Pe, Amazon and Byju’s as Co-presenting sponsors while Polycab, USL, Coca Cola, ITC, Mondelez, Kamla Pasand, Rummy Circle, AFI, Gillette have onboarded as Associate sponsors.

Apart from the sponsors, Star Sports has quite 60 advertisers for spot buys, PPL shows and features, sources said.

The tournament is held during the festive season has added to the general excitement among advertisers who want to revive their sales, which are hit massively by the Covid-19 pandemic and therefore the lockdown that followed.

A 10-second slot is being priced at Rs 12 lakh by Star India. Last year, an equivalent slot was sold between Rs 8 lakh and Rs 10 lakh by the broadcaster.

To ensure that the tournament has enough hype, the broadcaster has unrolled a 360-degree advertising campaign across mediums. The tournament is going to be played within the UAE this year between September 19 and November 10.