The viewership data for the first ten matches of the 16th season of Indian Premier League (IPL 2023) reveals that digital viewership has seen a major uptick while TV continues to struggle with a trend that failed to excite advertisers.
IPL 2023 on TV vs Digital:
While IPL ratings grew on TV between 2018 to 2020, the ratings have seen a continuous decline, dropping to as low as 3.68 TVR last season. The 4.72 TVR achieved in BARC M15+ All India Urban TG during the First 10 matches of this season is the 2nd lowest in the last six seasons despite telecasting matches on FTA. Moreover, it is way below 6.98 TVR delivered in IPL 13. Similarly, TV has garnered 2.79 TVR in 2+ All India TG which is marginally higher than 1.97 TVR delivered in IPL 15, But the peak happens to be 3.94 TVR delivered in IPL 13.
In terms of reach, IPL Season 16 has reached 274 Million viewers out of which 25 Million viewers were added from OOH and FTA channel. Without OOH & FTA viewers, IPL Reach is the 2nd lowest in the last six seasons. While TV on IPL has claimed Peak Concurrency of 5.6 crore for the opening match, under the sports relevant TG [M15+ AB Urban], advertisers’ TG, the concurrency is less than a crore [0.9 cr]. The trend so far clearly shows that TV is still lagging way behind the previous records which is inevitable to impress upon the sponsors and to command premium ad rates.
Whereas on digital, IPL is turning out to be a totally different story with record breaking numbers. On Wednesday, Chennai Super Kings vs Rajasthan Royals TATA IPL 2023 match on Digital (JioCinema) clocked the highest ever concurrent viewership of 2.3 crore viewers. The previous record is of 1.86 crore viewers on Disney Hotstar during the finals of 2019 season.
Free streaming of IPL on digital for all viewers in India has also resulted in a record-breaking number of views in the first week – over 550 Cr. This followed a robust first weekend which amassed 147 Cr. views, yet another record for being the highest-ever opening weekend for the TATA IPL on digital.
Affluent Viewers: TV vs Digital:
IPL 2023 on TV has claimed a reach of 20 mn affluent viewers through HD TV reach. IPL 2023 on JioCinema, on the other hand, reached to 40 mn affluent viewers through CTV reach which is 2X more than TV.
As per TAM and BARC AdEx data, advertisers on TV during IPL have also reduced by over 40% dropping from 64 advertisers last year to 35. Whereas, The digital streaming of IPL has got record 23 sponsors and hundreds of advertisers. Digital also aims to rope in 1000 brands before the end of IPL season 16, capitalising on special features like multilingual feed and gio-targetted advertising which is a digital exclusive phenomenon.
Earlier MPA has forecasted that digital will be carving a lion-share of the ad revenue from IPL 2023 and the progress so far seems to aligning with the predictions.
