The ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is notching up higher viewership numbers per week as broadcaster JioStar presses all levers to widen access across platforms. The endeavour, according to media industry sources, is to attract 1 billion viewers this year for the IPL, higher than the 541 million TV viewers the cash-rich league attracted last year.
This is also the first IPL season since the merger between the T20 tournament’s domestic linear TV (Star) and digital (Viacom18) partners last year, implying that the stakes are high, as the ongoing edition is expected to set new benchmarks for forthcoming seasons.
JioStar has taken a few bold bets this year. This includes taking IPL behind a freemium or hybrid paywall on digital, stepping up focus on customised narratives and language feeds on TV (linear) and digital, including connected TV, providing more IPL bundled options with telecom data plans across operators, introducing an upgrade to its vertical Max viewing experience on digital and improving the gaming experience during the tournament through the Jeeto Dhan Dhana Dhan contest.
All of this is showing up in an increase in viewership. As per data sourced from the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, the first 16 IPL matches on TV drew 370.3 million viewers in terms of live reach. This was the second-highest ever for the tournament, excluding the Covid-19 period. BARC data comes with a week’s lag for TV viewership.
For perspective, the opening weekend and the first eight IPL matches this year had drawn 253 million and 288 million viewers each, as per BARC data.
The TV watch time for the first 16 matches also surged to its highest-ever at 116.9 billion minutes, excluding the Covid-19 years. TV ratings (TVR) saw a 12% increase over last year for the first 16 matches at 6, BARC data shows.
Live overall digital reach and watch time, meanwhile, grew 30% versus last year for the first 24 matches of the season. Connected TV alone saw a 42% spurt in watch time and reach versus last year. Live digital views, which includes mobiles and connected TVs for the first 24 matches, stood at 8.1 billion, which is a significant jump over last year. Digital viewership comes in real-time.
“We have built different promotional, marketing and programming strategies for various cohorts, which has ensured wider recruitment and deeper engagement across TV and digital platforms,” Sanjog Gupta, chief executive officer, sports, JioStar, said.
“The aim is to deliver the biggest-ever IPL this year and as the tournament unfolds, we will continue on this path of delivering an interactive and immersive IPL experience,” he said.
Digital subscribers have already doubled to over 200 million on JioHotstar, JioStar’s streaming platform, since the start of the ongoing IPL, when the figure was at 100 million paying subscribers, industry sources said. The hybrid digital model has also pushed up pay-TV subscribers (including cable and direct-to-home) by about 2 million at the industry level, experts say, since the free IPL viewing model earlier had led to subscriber loss for these platforms.
The outreach to small and medium businesses to advertise on the IPL has also resulted in renewed interest from that segment, with total advertiser count, including small and big brands, at 1,100 and sponsors at 32.
The JioStar network is looking at advertising revenue of about `4,500 crore from the ongoing season, according to industry sources, a growth of around 12-13% from last year. International brands such as Dubai-based Danube Properties have come on board as a co-powered by TV sponsor and prominent domestic advertisers such as Amul, Asian Paints and Birla Opus are part of the sponsor list this year.