The IPL (Indian Premier League) premiered on 1st April, 2023 (Friday), for which Star Sports has the exclusive rights to broadcast their matches live across India. It is a hugely popular tournament where it is known for its dynamic matches, hard hitting batsmen, creative rundowns and inventive strategies, thereby making it a favourite among local sports fans. Moreover, Star Sports provides comprehensive coverage of the IPL including live streaming of matches, analysis and commentary from experts, interviews with players and coaches and behind-the-scenes access to the teams.
OTS (Opportunity To See) is the currency used by broadcasters which denotes the number of households that have access to a particular channel or the number of households where a particular channel is available. Hence larger the percentage, the higher the availability of the channel converting into possible consumption/ reach. According to the data sourced from Chrome DM on April 1st, the channels Star Sports 3 and Star Sports 1 have calculated a net OTS amounting to 67.4% and 19.3% respectively out of its total universe of 165.98 mn C&S households. These findings were reported after the transfer of Star Sports 1 from DEN, Hathaway and GTPL’s base packs to ‘a-la-carte’. In other words, if the consumer wishes to view the channel, he/she must pay for it separately in addition to their subscription to basic packages.
Across HSM market, Star sports Hindi 1 calculated its net OTS representing 61.47 mn households out of 111.62 mn C&S households. Star Sports network also witnessed a relatively higher connectivity in the Southern markets, where the OTS for Tamil, Kannada and Telugu channels come up at 93.4%, 89.8% and 91.0% respectively. These numbers are generated from Chrome Track 2.0 which considers the percentage connectivity (availability) of a channel across cable and satellite households factoring the off-take of packages across all reported distribution platforms in India.
The IPL consistently remains one of the most-watched sporting events in India, and Star Sports has certainly played a significant role in bringing the matches to the fans through its extensive coverage.
