Mumbai: The inaugural week of the VIVO IPL 2018, recorded a historic opening with 371 million viewers recorded on television & Hotstar. The television viewership stood at 288.4 million viewers (BARC 2+ U+R) and a platform reach of 82.4 million viewers on Hotstar. This is the highest ever inaugural week viewership recorded for IPL since its launch.
The VIVO IPL 2018 broadcast has been reimagined on the Star India Network offering fans a multi-lingual viewing experience in 6 languages, Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Bengali. The tournament is being broadcast on 10 TV channels and live streamed on Hotstar with an aim to reach out to more fans across TV and digital than ever before. Other firsts includean immersive Virtual Reality (VR) experience and Watch&Play on Hotstar providing an unmatched engagement opportunity for fans. Star India has also launched the #SelectDugout on Star Sports Select, a bespoke offering for the ardent cricket fan who likes to stay ahead of the game.
Television reach for the opening week stood at 288.4 million viewers driven by 30% increase in reach in South. The audience demographic of Males 15+ AB, Urban registered an impressive 273 Million impressions with a 23% growth versus year ago. The growth recorded was not limited to the core cricket fan with total Urban gross impressions at 854 million at 17% growth versus last year. Interestingly ~40% of the viewers were women a testimony to the universal appeal of IPL.
Hotstar registered a viewership of 82.4 million viewers on the platform with a phenomenal growth of 76% versus last year. With a 5.5 million concurrency during the CSK vs KKR game on April 10, 2018, Hotstar has smashed the global record for peak concurrency on a digital platform for a live sporting event, a record it has since then beaten with a peak concurrency of 6.0 million achieved during the MI vs RCB game on April 17, 2018.
Speaking on the response to the opening week of VIVO IPL 2018, Sanjay Gupta, MD, Star India, said, “We sought to re-imagine the way IPL was presented to fans and are delighted with how fans have responded across both TV and Hotstar, helping us set new viewership and conversation benchmarks. The consumption growth is a truly satisfying yardstick of unmatched fan delight and value for brands. Even though it is early days, this has already become the most watched IPL ever on a tournament to date basis, and we hope to continue to engage fans powered by localization and technology across TV and Hotstar.”
