Reliance-backed Viacom18 on Monday said its app JioCinema had clocked over 1.47 billion video views for the first weekend of the Indian Premier League, with new app downloads at 50 million.
Viacom18 has the digital rights to the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the 2023-27 media cycle. JioCinema is streaming the IPL for free this year. The tournament began on Friday.
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In a statement, Viacom18 said the figures were the highest-ever opening weekend numbers on digital for the IPL, bigger than the entire season of the tournament last year on digital.
The company also added that the average time spent per viewer per match touched 57 minutes during the opening weekend, over 60% higher compared with the opening weekend of the IPL last year.
The announcement by Viacom18 comes as rival Disney-Star, which has the IPL television rights for the 2023-27 media cycle, said on Sunday that it had seen a 47% year-on-year jump in TV consumption for the opening match between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings at 8.7 billion minutes, while its TV ratings spiked 29% versus last year.
It also said that peak concurrency for the opening match was 55.9 million and the engagement for the match was 76 minutes, according to data by the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC).
JioCinema had indicated last week that that over 60 million unique viewers had tuned in to the Gujarat Titans versus Chennai Super Kings match, which had achieved a peak concurrency of over 16 million on the app. The total match views on Day 1 on JioCinema had touched 500 million, it said.
“These numbers are exceptional and evidence of the digital revolution sweeping through the country. Digital is targetable, addressable and interactive. The landscape for content consumption has moved to digital and JioCinema performance this week is the biggest evidence of it,” said Anil Jayaraj, chief executive officer of Viacom18.
On the other hand, Sanjog Gupta, head of sports, Disney-Star, said television continues to be the “preferred platform” for uninterrupted viewing of live cricket. “The massive growth in viewing time of the IPL on Star is testament to the success of our campaign,” he said.
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Both broadcasters have pushed the pedal in terms of IPL programming this year, adding technology innovations, interactivity and multiple language feeds to their shows this year.
The broadcasters have also indicated that advertiser interest in the tournament this year has been high, with names such as UltraTech Cement, Puma, Castrol and Appy Fizz tying up with JioCinema and Asian Paints, Mountain Dew, Britannia and Parle Biscuits going with Disney-Star.