Television viewership of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has dipped for the second week in a row.

According to the average Broadcast Audience Research Council of India’s TV ratings, viewership of matches in the second week is down by 12-17 percent compared to the first week of the tournament across different age groups.

The viewership in the first week was already down compared to last year’s data.

The overall reach of the first week dropped 14 percent to 229.06 million from 267.7 million last year. In 2019, the overall reach was 268 million in the first week, The Hindu reported.

This comes even as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) floated a fresh tender to sell broadcasting rights with a minimum reserve price of around ₹32,000 crores.

According to experts, there could be multiple reasons for the dip in TV viewership this year

Brand expert Harish Bijoor said that a dip in TV viewership is not going to have an impact on the valuation of IPL in the upcoming media rights auctions.

“Since prospective bidders have already made up their minds regarding what is the value of this media property, they have also made up their minds regarding what they will be willing to pay for the same.”

“Furthermore, most of the dip in TV viewership is due to the transition to OTT/Digital viewership. Digital players are less likely to share those numbers, and we will see disclosure of digital viewership closer to the auction when the data is more valuable,” Bijoor added.