Disney Star sees record IPL viewership after 66 matches, TVR logs 43% growth for week 7

The Indian Premier League (IPL) has attracted record viewership for both its broadcaster Disney Star and digital streaming partner JioCinema. This year's matches generated an audience of 50.5 crore viewers tuning in to Disney Star's live broadcast on television, while JioCinema attracted a record 44.9 crore viewers.

Disney Star, the official broadcaster of the ongoing Tata IPL 2023, has said that it has taken just 29 matches of this years edition of the cash-rich cricket league to break TV viewership record set in in the whole of the 2022 edition. Disney Star said that it has recorded a growth of nearly 24% in television viewership ratings (TVR) in comparison to the last edition, citing BARC data.

Disney Star, the official TV broadcaster of Tata IPL announced that the IPL 2023 playoffs broke previous records, achieving a 44% increase in ratings compared to the previous year, surpassing the previous highest-rated playoffs recorded in IPL 2020. Gujarat Titans v Mumbai Indians (Qualifier 2) registers peak TV concurrency of 6.1 crore and is also the highest-rated Playoffs match ever.

According to data BARC, about 505 million viewers watched the live broadcast of the matches on television and the broadcaster said it got 427.1 billion minutes of watch time for its live broadcast

For the first time, two companies - Disney Star and Mukesh Ambani's Viacom18, are broadcasting the matches on television and digital platforms, respectively. Viacom18 claims its official digital streaming partner of IPL, JioCinema, reached 147 crore video views. However, Ambani isn't aiming to win all the viewers as he seeks to bolster Reliance's consumer apps and attract customers from his rival telecom companies.

Ad revenues for the 16th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) have dropped to a combined INR30bn ($402m) from the previous season?s INR46bn haul. TV rights holder Disney Star and streaming rights owner Viacom18 are both lagging behind their respective targets, with only INR30bn worth of deals inked so far. Last season, Star Sports earned INR31bn in ad revenues, while its arm Disney+Hotstar booked sponsorships and advertising worth INR15bn. This year, Star Sports has signed 13 sponsors and Viacom18 has 21 sponsors on board.

The India-Pakistan cricket World Cup match on Saturday achieved a new global streaming record on Disney Hotstar, with 3.5 crore concurrent viewers.

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Starting this year, the IPL media rights are owned separately for TV (Disney Star) and digital (Viacom18). Till last year, both the TV and digital rights were with Disney Star. Disney Star is believed to have closed sponsorship deals worth ₹2,400 crore and is in negotiations to close another ₹600 crore of transactions, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

In IPL 2023, LSG is unbeaten at home so far and will be keen to maintain its 100% winning record.