Ag Voice | How World Cup Cricket has evolved from radio to mobile

To know the scores and listen the commentary of the first world cup cricket in 1975 all of us just relied on one medium and that was radio. And this was only possible on BBC and to get the right reception one had to stand on the balcony or terrace of your apartment holding the radio set in different direction. It was exciting to hear the great radio commentators like Brian Johnston and Christopher Martin Jenkins. Radio had its own charm and one could hear the commentary without any interruption and interestingly there were no jingles or ad spots. The second world cup was more or less identical to 1975 and we still depended on radio as the only source of medium to know the score.

The change in the medium emerged in 1983 as the matches were telecast on TV by Doordharshan. Here again only the semifinals and finals were telecast. But the interesting moment and feature was that people who had color sets could watch the matches in color as India went in to color after the Asian Games. Here again matches were telecast without any interruptions as there were no advertisements. And this was one of the most memorable world cup for Indians as Kapil's men bagged the world cup by shocking the strong team of West Indies who were defending the cup for the third consecutive year.

1987 saw a new dimension to the world cup as the cup was held in India. It was called the Reliance cup and it was prestigious for India to hold it, as it was always held in England. We witnessed more brands getting associated with cricket in a big way and the tournament was highly successful. India as an organizer put up a good show and this was just the beginning of the game becoming bigger and reaching a larger audience. But during those days DD had the telecast rights and all matches were telecast only DD.

The last few years the game has grown bigger and newer formats have come into play. This has been complemented by the several medium starting from TV to radio and now the mobile were you enjoy live scores on the go. The new technology and increase of mobile usage has made it possible that every second of entertainment is captured and engagement with cricket on mobile has increased manifolds. It’s been a great journey for cricket and so, it is for the new medium. For mobile this is just the beginning and we will see more inventions and innovation in the mobile platform to make it more attractive and engaging to advertisers and brands.  Live engagement on the go is what consumers want, which only the mobile medium can deliver with rich media content and interesting videos. By: Ganapathy Viswanathan Senior, Vice -President, Eureka Mobile Advertising.