Star Sports First TV Advertising in India — Rates, Audience Reach, GRP Planning & Campaign Booking Guide

If you are evaluating Star Sports First TV advertising for your next campaign, this page gives you what most rate cards and media decks do not — actual cost benchmarks, audience intelligence drawn from BARC ratings data, a clear explanation of how GRP and CPRP planning works on this channel, and a frank assessment of where Star Sports First fits inside a broader sports media plan. We have also included the channel's rebrand history, which affects how you should plan campaigns from 2025 onward.

What Is Star Sports First and Who Watches It in India?

Star Sports First occupies a genuinely unusual position inside the Star Sports Network, and frankly, most media planners do not give it enough credit for what it actually delivers. Launched on 21 July 2017 under the JioStar (formerly Disney Star India) umbrella, the channel was conceived specifically as a Hindi-language free-to-air sports channel designed to reach the massive DD Free Dish audience — the tens of millions of Indian households, predominantly in the Hindi-speaking belt, that consume television without a paid cable or DTH subscription. That positioning is not incidental; it is the entire strategic logic of the channel, and it shapes everything from its programming slate to the kind of advertiser that gets the best return from it.

The sports viewers India who tune into Star Sports First are meaningfully different from the audience on Star Sports 1 or Star Sports 1 Hindi HD. They skew toward Tier 2, Tier 3, and rural markets across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Jharkhand — states which, collectively, represent some of the largest untapped consumer populations in the country. BARC ratings data has consistently shown that the channel's viewership peaks sharply during live cricket broadcasts, particularly BCCI domestic cricket tournaments and ICC events where Star Sports First carries Hindi commentary feeds. For any brand targeting the mass Hindi-speaking market — whether that is an FMCG company, an edtech platform, a two-wheeler manufacturer, or a microfinance institution — this audience profile is not a consolation prize; it is the primary reason to be on the channel.

What a lot of people miss is the channel's distribution strength on DD Free Dish, which is the world's largest free direct-to-home platform by subscriber count, operated by Prasar Bharati. Being present on DD Free Dish means Star Sports First reaches households that competing paid sports channels simply cannot access, which gives advertisers a national reach footprint that extends well beyond the urban multiplex audience. We should also note — because it affects campaign planning significantly — that in March 2025, Star Sports First was rebranded as Star Sports 2 Kannada, reflecting a strategic shift in the Star Network India portfolio. Advertisers who booked long-duration campaigns or annual packages on the channel need to account for this evolution; the audience composition, programming, and rate structures associated with the original Star Sports First identity have transitioned accordingly.

What Are the Advertising Rates on Star Sports First in India?

Star sports first advertising rates are not published on a single public rate card, which is the honest reality of how television advertising India operates — rates are negotiated, and the final number depends on the event, the daypart, the spot length, the volume of FCT slots being booked, and whether you are going in as a direct advertiser or through a media agency. That said, we can give you meaningful benchmarks drawn from actual campaign negotiations, and those numbers tell a useful story.

For non-prime time FCT slots on Star Sports First during regular programming — think afternoon replays, studio shows, or non-marquee domestic cricket matches — the per-second airtime rate has historically worked out to somewhere between ₹800 and ₹1,500 per second, which means a standard 10-second ad in a non-prime window costs in the ballpark of ₹8,000 to ₹15,000 per spot. Prime time slots during live match broadcasts, particularly evening sessions of BCCI domestic tournaments or Pro Kabaddi League advertising windows, command rates that are meaningfully higher — typically in the range of ₹2,000 to ₹4,500 per second, which pushes a 30-second ad into the ₹60,000 to ₹1,35,000 territory per spot. These are rough benchmarks, not guarantees, and the actual star sports first ad rates you receive will depend heavily on negotiation leverage, booking volume, and timing relative to the event calendar.

At SmartAds, we always tell our clients that the headline rate per spot is rarely the number that matters most — what matters is the effective CPRP you are achieving across the campaign, because that is the only figure that allows you to compare Star Sports First advertising against other channels in the same plan. A client in the consumer durables category came to us wanting to run a cricket advertising campaign during a BCCI bilateral series, and when we mapped the CPRP on Star Sports First against what they had been paying on a general entertainment channel, the sports channel delivered nearly 40 percent better cost efficiency on the target audience of males aged 22 to 45 in Hindi-speaking markets. That is the kind of data point that justifies the budget conversation internally.

Why Should Brands Advertise on Star Sports First TV?

The case for Star Sports First TV advertising rests on three things that are genuinely hard to replicate elsewhere: the DD Free Dish distribution advantage, the Hindi-language sports content environment, and the price efficiency relative to premium sports channels. To be fair, Star Sports First is not the right channel for every advertiser — if your target audience is urban, English-speaking, and concentrated in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore, you will get better results from Star Sports 1 or Star Sports 1 Hindi HD. But for brands that need PAN India reach with genuine depth in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, the channel's free-to-air sports channel positioning is a structural advantage that is difficult to match.

Brand awareness built through sports channel advertising has a particular quality to it — the emotional context of live sport creates what researchers call high-attention viewing, which means the ad break during a tense cricket match is processed differently by the brain than the same ad break during a soap opera. Brand recall scores on sports channels consistently outperform general entertainment channels in post-campaign studies, and Star Sports First benefits from this effect even among audiences that are watching on small screens in rural households. We have seen this dynamic play out in campaigns for a paint brand that was trying to establish presence in UP and Bihar; the brand recall lift measured in post-campaign surveys was nearly double what the same brand achieved from a comparable GRP investment on a regional GEC.

On top of that, the sponsorship opportunities on Star Sports First — co-presenting sponsorship packages, associate sponsorship positions, and programme-specific integrations — allow brands to build a share of voice that goes beyond simple FCT slots. A co-presenting sponsorship on a marquee cricket broadcast gives you logo bug presence, L-Band advertising opportunities during live play, and a brand association with the event itself, which is a qualitatively different kind of exposure than a spot buy. For mid-size brands that cannot afford the full sponsorship inventory on Star Sports 1, Star Sports First has historically offered co-presenting and associate sponsorship packages at price points that are genuinely accessible — and that is a gap in the market that we actively help clients exploit.

What Ad Formats Are Available on Star Sports First?

The range of ad formats on Star Sports First is broader than most advertisers realise when they first approach a sports channel advertising buy, and choosing the right format combination is where a significant amount of campaign value is either created or lost. The most common entry point is the standard video ad TVC — a 10-second ad or 30-second ad inserted into the ad break during or between programmes; this is the format most brands default to, and it works, but it is also the most crowded and price-competitive inventory.

Beyond the standard spot buy, the channel carries L-Band advertising — the horizontal banner overlay that appears at the bottom of the screen during live match coverage without interrupting the broadcast — which is particularly effective for brand awareness because it reaches viewers who are actively watching the game rather than stepping away during an ad break. The logo bug format, which is a smaller branded element typically placed in a corner of the screen during programme sponsorship integrations, serves a different purpose: it is less about immediate message delivery and more about sustained brand presence across the duration of a broadcast. Aston Band placements, which are text-based lower-third overlays, are used for promotional messaging and are often bundled into sponsorship packages rather than sold as standalone inventory.

The creative file format requirements for Star Sports First TV advertising are worth knowing before you brief your production team — video TVC materials are accepted in MOV format, and the minimum spot length is 10 seconds, with the channel not typically accepting anything shorter for broadcast quality reasons. Static creative for L-Band and logo bug positions is generally submitted in CDR format. Our experience shows that many first-time television advertisers lose a week of campaign time because their agency submits materials in the wrong format or at incorrect resolution, which delays the creative approval process; getting this right upfront is a small detail that has a real impact on your campaign start date.

Who Watches Star Sports First — Audience Demographics and Viewership

The audience profile of Star Sports First is something we find ourselves explaining repeatedly to clients who have only looked at the channel's ratings in isolation without understanding the demographic texture underneath the numbers. BARC ratings data places the channel's core viewership firmly in the male 15 to 44 age bracket, with particularly strong indexing in the Hindi-speaking belt states — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh collectively account for a disproportionate share of the channel's total viewing minutes during live cricket broadcasts.

What makes this audience commercially interesting — and what the FICCI-EY Media Report has consistently highlighted as an underserved advertiser opportunity — is that these are sports viewers India who are not being reached effectively by premium sports channels that sit behind pay walls. A household in Gorakhpur or Patna that watches cricket on Star Sports First through DD Free Dish is a real consumer with real purchasing power, particularly in categories like two-wheelers, FMCG, mobile handsets, agri-inputs, and financial services. The effective frequency at which these viewers encounter a brand message during a multi-day cricket series is substantially higher than what you would achieve on a general entertainment channel, because live sport generates appointment viewing behaviour — people come back to the same channel at the same time, day after day, for the duration of the tournament.

To be honest, the TRP performance of Star Sports First has varied considerably depending on what is on air — the channel's ratings spike dramatically during live cricket, particularly IPL advertising windows and ICC tournaments, and settle to a much lower baseline during non-cricket programming. This is a pattern common to all sports channels, and it means that media planning for Star Sports First needs to be event-driven rather than calendar-driven; booking FCT slots during a dead programming week because the rate is low is rarely a good use of budget, whereas concentrating spend around marquee events — even at higher per-spot costs — typically delivers far better GRP efficiency.

How Do You Book a TV Ad on Star Sports First?

The booking process for Star Sports First TV advertising follows the standard television advertising India workflow, but there are enough channel-specific nuances that walking through it in detail is genuinely useful. The process begins with a campaign brief — defining your target audience, the markets you want to reach, the campaign duration, the budget envelope, and the key events or programming windows you want to be adjacent to. From that brief, a media plan is built which specifies the daypart mix, spot length, number of FCT slots per week, and the GRP delivery target across the campaign period.

Once the plan is agreed, the actual booking is placed with the Star Network India sales team — either directly, if you are a large enough advertiser to have a direct relationship, or through a media agency like SmartAds which negotiates on your behalf. The advantage of going through an agency is not just rate negotiation; it is also the ability to manage program adjacency preferences, ensure your spots are not running back-to-back with a competitor in the same ad break, and handle the telecast logs verification process at the back end of the campaign. Telecast logs are the documentary record of when your ad actually aired, and reconciling them against the booked plan is a step that many direct advertisers skip — which means they often pay for spots that did not air or aired in the wrong daypart.

The timeline from brief to going live is typically somewhere between 10 and 21 days for a straightforward FCT spot campaign, assuming the creative is already produced and approved. If you are building a sponsorship package — co-presenting sponsorship or associate sponsorship — the lead time extends to four to six weeks, because the integration elements need to be designed, approved, and built into the broadcast production workflow. For IPL advertising specifically, inventory is typically sold months in advance, and waiting until the tournament is underway to try to buy spots is a strategy that almost always results in either unavailability or significantly inflated rates.

How Much Does Star Sports First Advertising Cost During IPL and Major Events?

IPL advertising on Star Sports First is a different market from the channel's regular programming inventory, and the rate differential is substantial enough that it warrants its own planning conversation. During the Indian Premier League window — which typically runs from March through May — the demand for FCT slots on every Star Sports channel increases dramatically, and Star Sports First is no exception. The channel carries Hindi-language IPL coverage for the DD Free Dish and free-to-air audience, which means it is simultaneously one of the most affordable IPL advertising options and one of the highest-reach options for the mass Hindi market.

Star sports first advertising rates during IPL prime time live match windows have historically worked out to somewhere in the range of ₹3,500 to ₹7,000 per second — which means a 10-second ad during a live IPL match on Star Sports First costs in the ballpark of ₹35,000 to ₹70,000 per spot, and a 30-second ad sits somewhere between ₹1,05,000 and ₹2,10,000. These are meaningfully lower than the equivalent rates on Star Sports 1 or Star Sports 1 Hindi HD for the same match, which reflects the channel's positioning as the free-to-air option rather than the premium pay channel. For brands that want to be part of the Tata IPL conversation without the eight-figure budgets that the premium channels require, Star Sports First has historically been the most practical entry point.

Pro Kabaddi League advertising on Star Sports First represents a different opportunity — one that we think is significantly undervalued by most media planners. PKL has built a genuinely loyal viewership base in Hindi-speaking markets, with BARC ratings showing strong performance in exactly the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities that Star Sports First is built to serve. One FMCG client we worked with ran a Pro Kabaddi League advertising campaign on Star Sports First across two seasons, targeting households in UP and Bihar, and the brand awareness scores in those markets moved by 14 percentage points over the campaign period — a result that would have cost three times as much to achieve through general entertainment channel inventory in the same markets. ICC cricket world cup advertising on Star Sports First follows a similar premium pricing logic to IPL, with rates negotiated as part of the ICC broadcast rights package that Star Network India holds.

What Is the Difference Between Prime Time and Non-Prime Time on Star Sports First?

The daypart structure on Star Sports First is driven almost entirely by the live match schedule rather than the clock-based prime time conventions that govern general entertainment channels, which is an important distinction that affects how you build a media plan. On a GEC, prime time is reliably 8 PM to 11 PM every night; on a sports channel, prime time is whenever the match is live, which might be 9:30 AM for a morning session of a Test match or 7:30 PM for an IPL evening game.

Non-prime time on Star Sports First typically covers programming windows that do not carry live match content — pre-recorded studio shows, match highlights, cricket magazine programmes, and repeat broadcasts. The per-second airtime rate in these windows is substantially lower, often 40 to 60 percent of the live match rate, which makes non-prime time inventory attractive for brands that are running drip campaigns focused on sustained brand awareness rather than high-impact burst activity. The trade-off is audience size — non-prime time viewership on a sports channel can be a fraction of the live match audience, so the GRP delivery per spot is correspondingly lower even if the absolute cost is cheaper.

What a lot of media planners get wrong is treating non-prime time as wasted inventory; the reality is that a well-constructed daypart mix — combining high-impact prime time live match spots for reach with non-prime time spots for frequency — often delivers better effective frequency outcomes than concentrating the entire budget in live match windows. We have found that for brand awareness campaigns targeting male audiences in Hindi-speaking markets, a 60/40 split between live match and non-live programming inventory on Star Sports First tends to optimise the CPRP while maintaining the emotional association with live sport that makes sports channel advertising work in the first place.

How Are GRP, TRP, and CPRP Used in Star Sports First Media Planning?

GRP, TRP, and CPRP are the three numbers that any serious media planning conversation about Star Sports First TV advertising will eventually come back to, and understanding how they interact is genuinely important for justifying budget decisions to management. TRP — Television Rating Point — is the measure of what percentage of the target audience watched a specific programme or spot at a specific time, as measured by the BARC ratings panel. GRP is the aggregate of TRPs across all spots in a campaign; if you run 20 spots that each deliver an average TRP of 2.5, your campaign delivers 50 GRPs. CPRP — Cost Per Rating Point — is simply the total campaign cost divided by the total GRP, and it is the number that allows you to compare efficiency across channels and campaigns.

On Star Sports First, the TRP per spot varies enormously depending on the programming context — a live IPL match might deliver a TRP of 3 to 5 on the target audience of males aged 15 to 44 in the Hindi-speaking belt, while a studio show in a non-prime daypart might deliver a TRP of 0.3 to 0.8. The CPRP calculation therefore needs to account for this variation, and a media plan that looks efficient on paper because it has a lot of low-cost non-prime spots might actually deliver a worse CPRP than a plan concentrated in fewer, higher-rated live match windows. This is where media planning experience matters — building the right GRP curve for a campaign on Star Sports First requires knowing the historical TRP performance of different programming types, which is data that comes from the BARC ratings measurement system and from campaign experience.

At SmartAds, our media planning team runs CPRP benchmarking across the Star Sports Network channels as part of every sports advertising brief, which allows us to tell clients not just what Star Sports First costs but how it compares to Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 2, and other sports channel options on a cost-per-rating-point basis. The answer is not always that Star Sports First is cheaper on a CPRP basis — sometimes the premium channels deliver better CPRP because their higher absolute ratings more than compensate for their higher per-spot costs. The right answer depends on your target audience definition, and getting that definition right is the first step in any media planning exercise.

Can Small and Mid-Size Brands Advertise on Star Sports First?

This is a question we get asked more often than almost any other, and the honest answer is yes — with some important caveats about minimum billing and campaign structure. The minimum budget required to run a meaningful Star Sports First TV advertising campaign during a regular programming window is in the ballpark of ₹5 to ₹10 lakh for a two-week flight, which is accessible to mid-size regional brands, D2C companies, and local businesses with serious growth ambitions. That budget will not buy you a co-presenting sponsorship or a high-frequency live match presence, but it will buy you enough FCT slots in a well-chosen daypart to generate measurable brand awareness among the channel's core audience.

The minimum billing threshold for a direct booking with Star Network India is typically higher than what a small brand can comfortably commit to, which is where working through a media agency becomes practically important rather than just convenient. An agency that is aggregating volume across multiple clients has negotiating leverage that a single small advertiser cannot replicate, which means the effective per-spot rate available through an agency relationship is often 15 to 25 percent lower than the rate a brand would achieve going direct. On top of that, the channel rotation and program adjacency management that an agency provides — ensuring your spots are spread across the right dayparts and not clustered in low-performing windows — has a real impact on campaign GRP delivery.

One automotive accessories brand we worked with had a budget of ₹8 lakh for a four-week campaign on Star Sports First during a domestic cricket series; by concentrating the buy around the live match evening sessions and negotiating a package that included two L-Band advertising positions per match day, we were able to deliver a reach figure of roughly 1.2 crore unique viewers in Hindi-speaking markets over the campaign period. The brand had previously been spending the same budget on digital video, where they were reaching a younger, more urban audience — the shift to Star Sports First opened up a Tier 2 market segment they had not previously been able to address at scale.

How Does Star Sports First Compare to Other Star Sports Channels for Advertising?

The Star Sports Network carries multiple channels — Star Sports 1, Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 1 Hindi HD, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 3, and until March 2025, Star Sports First — and understanding where each sits in the hierarchy is essential for building an intelligent media plan. Star Sports 1 is the flagship English-language channel and carries the highest-profile cricket inventory, including live IPL matches and ICC events; it commands the highest ad rates in the network and delivers the strongest urban, English-speaking, SEC A and B audience. Star Sports 1 Hindi is the Hindi-language equivalent on the pay platform, targeting the same events but for the Hindi-speaking pay TV audience.

Star Sports First occupied a distinct position as the free-to-air sports channel within the network — lower rates than the pay channels, broader distribution through DD Free Dish, and a stronger rural and Tier 2 audience profile. The key comparison for media planners is between Star Sports First and Star Sports 1 Hindi: both target Hindi-speaking sports audiences, but Star Sports First reached the non-pay segment of that audience, which is a meaningfully different and in many ways larger population. For brands targeting mass market Hindi consumers, Star Sports First historically delivered a lower CPRP than Star Sports 1 Hindi because its DD Free Dish distribution gave it access to households that the pay channel simply could not reach.

The rebrand of Star Sports First to Star Sports 2 Kannada in March 2025 represents a significant strategic shift in the Star Network India portfolio, effectively retiring the free-to-air Hindi sports channel positioning and redirecting that channel's distribution toward a Kannada-language audience. For advertisers who had built media plans around the Star Sports First Hindi free-to-air audience, this change requires a recalibration — the equivalent audience is now being served through different channels and platforms within the JioStar ecosystem, including JioHotstar for digital reach. This is a nuance that competitor pages and generic rate card sites have not addressed, and it is genuinely important for anyone planning a campaign that references the Star Sports First brand.

How Do You Measure the ROI of a Star Sports First TV Campaign?

Measuring the ROI of television advertising India has always been the conversation that makes brand managers uncomfortable, and Star Sports First TV advertising is no exception — but the measurement toolkit available today is substantially better than it was five years ago, and frankly, the excuse that TV cannot be measured does not hold up anymore. The starting point is establishing a clear campaign objective — brand awareness, share of voice, search lift, or direct response — because each objective requires a different measurement approach and a different set of success metrics.

For brand awareness campaigns, the standard approach is a pre- and post-campaign brand tracking study measuring unaided recall, aided recall, and brand consideration scores among the target audience. BARC ratings data provides the GRP delivery confirmation, which tells you whether the campaign actually reached the planned audience at the planned frequency; reconciling the telecast logs against the booked plan is the first verification step, and it is one we always conduct rigorously because discrepancies between booked and delivered GRPs are more common than advertisers realise. Search lift measurement — tracking the change in branded search volume on Google during and after the campaign period — has become an increasingly useful proxy for television advertising effectiveness, particularly for brands that have a meaningful digital presence alongside their TV spend.

For campaigns that include a JioHotstar digital component alongside the Star Sports First TV buy — which is a combination we strongly recommend for any brand that wants to reach the same sports audience across screens — the measurement framework becomes richer, because digital platforms provide impression-level data that can be cross-referenced against the TV GRP delivery to build a unified reach and frequency picture. The Dentsu e4m Report has highlighted the growing importance of cross-platform attribution in Indian sports advertising, and our experience at SmartAds confirms that brands which integrate their Star Sports First TV advertising with JioHotstar digital campaigns consistently report higher brand recall scores than brands running either channel in isolation — the combined effect of seeing the same message on television and on a mobile screen during the same sporting event creates an effective frequency multiplier that neither medium achieves alone.

FAQ: Star Sports First TV Advertising — Everything Advertisers Ask

Q: What is Star Sports First and who watches it in India?

Star Sports First was a Hindi-language free-to-air sports channel launched on 21 July 2017 as part of the Star Sports Network under JioStar (formerly Disney Star India). Its primary audience was the DD Free Dish subscriber base — predominantly Hindi-speaking households in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and rural markets across North and Central India, with strong viewership in UP, Bihar, MP, and Rajasthan. The channel was rebranded as Star Sports 2 Kannada in March 2025, marking the end of its run as a free-to-air Hindi sports channel; advertisers planning campaigns that reference the original Star Sports First positioning should account for this transition in their media plans.

Q: What are the current advertising rates on Star Sports First TV?

Star sports first advertising rates vary by daypart, event, and spot length. During regular non-prime programming, the per-second airtime rate works out to roughly ₹800 to ₹1,500, making a 10-second ad cost somewhere between ₹8,000 and ₹15,000 per spot. During live cricket prime time — particularly IPL advertising windows or ICC events — rates climb to somewhere in the range of ₹3,500 to ₹7,000 per second. These are indicative benchmarks; actual star sports first ad rates are negotiated and depend on volume, timing, and whether you are booking through a media agency.

Q: How is the advertising rate on Star Sports First calculated — per second or per spot?

Television advertising in India is primarily calculated on a per-second airtime rate basis, which is then multiplied by the spot length to arrive at the per-spot cost. A 10-second ad and a 30-second ad are therefore priced proportionally, with the per-second rate remaining constant within a given daypart and programming window. Some packages — particularly sponsorship packages like co-presenting sponsorship or associate sponsorship — are priced as a total package rather than per second, because they bundle multiple elements including FCT slots, L-Band advertising, and logo bug positions.

Q: What is the minimum budget required to advertise on Star Sports First?

For a meaningful campaign — one that delivers enough GRP to generate measurable brand awareness — the practical minimum is in the ballpark of ₹5 to ₹10 lakh for a two-week flight during regular programming. IPL advertising windows require a higher minimum commitment, typically ₹20 to ₹30 lakh for a campaign that delivers meaningful reach during the tournament. Working through a media agency allows smaller advertisers to access better rates and lower effective minimum billing thresholds than they would achieve going direct to the Star Network India sales team.

Q: What ad formats are available on Star Sports First — Video TVC, L-Band, Logo Bug, Aston Band?

Star Sports First carries the full range of television advertising formats available on Star Sports Network channels. Standard FCT spots — video ad TVC placements in the ad break — are available in 10-second, 20-second, and 30-second durations. L-Band advertising is the horizontal overlay banner that runs at the bottom of the screen during live play, which is particularly effective because it reaches viewers during high-attention moments without requiring a full ad break. Logo bug placements are smaller branded elements used in programme sponsorship integrations, and Aston Band overlays are text-based lower-thirds used for promotional messaging. Sponsorship packages typically bundle multiple formats, which is why they often deliver better value than standalone spot buys.

Q: What is the difference between prime time and non-prime time advertising on Star Sports First?

On Star Sports First, prime time is defined by live match scheduling rather than a fixed clock window. When a live cricket match or PKL game is broadcasting, that window is effectively prime time regardless of the hour; the ad break during a live match delivers dramatically higher viewership than the same slot on a day without live sport. Non-prime time covers studio shows, highlights programmes, and repeat broadcasts, which carry lower viewership but also lower rates — typically 40 to 60 percent of the live match rate. A well-constructed media plan uses both dayparts strategically, concentrating budget in live match windows for reach and using non-prime slots for frequency building.

Q: How long does it take to go live with a Star Sports First TV ad campaign?

For a standard FCT spot campaign where the creative is already produced and approved, the timeline from booking to going live is typically 10 to 21 days. The creative approval process — where the channel's compliance team reviews the TVC for content standards — usually takes three to five business days. Sponsorship packages and integration-based campaigns require four to six weeks of lead time because the broadcast production elements need to be built in. For IPL advertising, inventory is sold months in advance, and attempting to book during the tournament itself is almost always unsuccessful or significantly more expensive.

Q: Can I advertise on Star Sports First during the IPL and Pro Kabaddi League?

Yes — Star Sports First carried both IPL advertising inventory and Pro Kabaddi League advertising inventory as part of the Star Sports Network's broadcast rights packages. IPL on Star Sports First was the free-to-air Hindi-language broadcast, which reached the DD Free Dish audience that the premium pay channels do not access. PKL advertising on Star Sports First was particularly valuable for brands targeting Hindi-speaking Tier 2 markets, given the league's strong viewership in exactly those geographies. With the channel's rebrand to Star Sports 2 Kannada in March 2025, the equivalent free-to-air sports advertising opportunities for Hindi audiences are now distributed differently within the JioStar portfolio.

Q: How do GRP, TRP, and CPRP work when planning a Star Sports First campaign?

TRP measures the percentage of the target audience that watched a specific spot or programme, as reported by the BARC ratings system. GRP is the sum of all TRPs across the campaign — a campaign delivering 100 GRPs has, in aggregate, reached the equivalent of the entire target audience once. CPRP divides the total campaign cost by the total GRP to give a cost-efficiency benchmark that allows comparison across channels and campaigns. On Star Sports First, live match TRPs are significantly higher than non-live programming TRPs, which means a plan concentrated in live windows will typically deliver a better CPRP despite the higher per-spot cost, provided the target audience is the channel's core sports-watching demographic.

Q: Is Star Sports First available on DD Free Dish and cable platforms across India?

Star Sports First was specifically designed for DD Free Dish distribution, which is the free direct-to-home platform operated by Prasar Bharati; this was the channel's defining structural advantage over the pay sports channels. It was also carried on cable platforms in many markets. This free-to-air sports channel positioning gave it a national reach footprint that extended into rural and semi-urban households that pay sports channels cannot access — which is the primary reason the channel was commercially interesting for mass market advertisers targeting the Hindi-speaking belt.

Q: How do I measure the ROI of my Star Sports First TV advertising campaign?

ROI measurement for Star Sports First TV advertising combines several approaches: telecast log verification against the booked plan to confirm GRP delivery, pre- and post-campaign brand tracking studies to measure brand recall and consideration lift, and search lift analysis to track changes in branded search volume during and after the campaign. For campaigns integrated with JioHotstar digital activity, cross-platform attribution models can provide a unified view of reach and frequency across television and digital. The BARC ratings system provides the audience delivery data; the brand tracking and search lift data come from independent research and digital analytics platforms.

Q: Do I need a media agency to book ads on Star Sports First, or can I do it directly?

Direct booking is technically possible for large advertisers with established relationships with the Star Network India sales team, but the practical advantages of working through a media agency are significant enough that most advertisers — including large ones — choose the agency route. An agency provides rate negotiation leverage from volume aggregation, program adjacency management, telecast log verification, and the media planning expertise to build a GRP-efficient campaign rather than simply buying spots. For smaller advertisers, the minimum billing thresholds for direct booking often make agency access the only practical option.

Q: How does Star Sports First compare to Star Sports 1 Hindi for advertising purposes?

The key difference is distribution and audience profile. Star Sports 1 Hindi is a pay channel, reaching Hindi-speaking sports audiences who subscribe to cable or DTH; Star Sports First was a free-to-air channel reaching Hindi-speaking audiences who do not pay for television. This means the two channels reached meaningfully different segments of the same broad demographic — Star Sports 1 Hindi skewed more urban and higher-income, while Star Sports First reached the mass market, lower-income, rural and semi-urban segment. For brands targeting the mass Hindi market, Star Sports First historically delivered a lower CPRP; for brands targeting urban Hindi-speaking consumers with higher purchasing power, Star Sports 1 Hindi was typically the better choice.

Q: Can I run different ad creatives for different regions on Star Sports First?

Star Sports First broadcast a single national feed without