The world’s richest cricket league, the Indian Premier League (IPL), has kicked off successfully. Just like always, this time too, the well-written Virat Kohli innings and enormous sixes hit by MS Dhoni are keeping people on the edge of their seats. However, this season’s IPL has undergone three rule changes. The most prominent change for the tournament is the way it is aired for the same audience on various platforms by various businesses.
It is the first time that Disney Star and Mukesh Ambani’s Viacom18 are broadcasting the matches on television and digital networks. Both companies had to shell out a sizable sum of money in order to acquire the transmission rights. As a result, they created fierce competition between broadcast television and online streaming to determine which format cricket fans favour.
According to Viacom18, a joint venture between Reliance Industries and Paramount Global, JioCinema, the official digital streaming partner of the IPL, clocked over 147 crore video views. It set a milestone for the highest opening weekend for the competition on digital platforms.
However, 147 crore views on a video do not mean 147 crore viewers. Karan Taurani, senior vice president and media analyst at Elara Capital, explained, “If there are 15-to-18 crore viewers and they have logged in and out nine times, you will get the number around 147 crore video views.”
Jio mentioned that the season’s opening clash between MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings and Hardik Pandya’s Gujarat Titans obtained peak concurrency. However, the season didn’t get off to a smooth start as fans complained on social media about the app’s crashes, buffering problems, and audio feed loss for two consecutive matches, including the opener between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings.
Meanwhile, Walt Disney & Co-owned Star Sports, the official television broadcaster of the Indian Premier League witnessed a 47% on-year jump in consumption for the opening match, said the broadcaster. Furthermore, its TV rating surged 29%.
The broadcaster reported consumption of 870 crore minutes on TV in total for the March 31 encounter between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings. On the first day, 14 crore people watched the live broadcast, which included 13 crore people watching the inaugural ceremony.
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