Television viewership of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 has shattered records, broadcaster Disney Star said on Thursday, pointing to the growth the cash-rich league saw in viewership this year even with two broadcasters vying for attention.
Quoting data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC), Disney Star said 505 million TV viewers tuned in to watch the live broadcast of matches during the IPL — a first for the tournament.
The year-on-year growth in TV ratings was 32%, while watch time for the live broadcast was 427.1 billion minutes, an all-time high.
On Thursday, Viacom18’s JioCinema, which was streaming the IPL for free, said 449 million watched the event on their platform, on mobiles phones, tablets, laptops, desktops and connected TVs. The latter (connected TVs) saw rapid adoption, with 126 million logging in through this mode.
As far as Disney Star was concerned, the final match between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings, pushed to May 29 after unseasonal rain on May 28, saw a peak TV concurrency of 64.1 million, the highest for the tournament. As many as 47 out of 74 matches registered a peak concurrency of over 30 million on TV. Hindi-speaking markets saw 334 million TV viewers tune into the tournament, a jump of 47% over last year.
How significant these numbers are can be gauged from this: The IPL would see around 300-400 million TV viewers annually in previous years, media experts said. This year clearly bucked the trend as both Disney Star and Viacom18 raised the marketing and programming pitch of the IPL.
While Disney Star focused on providing a “big-screen” experience of the tournament, Viacom18 opted to go free for this edition of the IPL, seeing over 17 billion video views during the two-month-long tournament on its app JioCinema.
“The TV viewership of the IPL has surpassed our expectations,” Sanjog Gupta, head, sports Disney Star, said, adding that if the pre- and post-coverage of matches and highlights were considered then the total number of viewers tuning into the tournament would be higher.
“When it comes to uninterrupted live viewing of cricket, television scores. It is the big screen, which gives you an immersive experience of live-action cricket. While digital and other media are a complement to the overall viewing experience,” he added.
The final match between Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans was watched by over 120 million unique viewers on JioCinema, the Reliance-backed platform said last week. It registered over 25 million app downloads in a single day.
While the final match saw a peak concurrency of 32 million on JioCinema, crossing previous concurrency peaks achieved during four different matches.
“Record-breaking scale on JioCinema combined with targeting, the flexibility of cost, measurement, interactivity, reach and integration offered significant advantages to sponsors and advertisers,” Viacom18 Sports CEO Anil Jayaraj, said.
The engagement and participation on digital, he added, marked an inflection point in the industry where both viewers and advertisers had made their preference clear.