TV viewership of first 29 IPL matches higher than entire tournament in 2022

The TV viewership of the current edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) crossed the viewership record of last year’s edition in just 29 matches, Disney Star, the official broadcaster of the league, said. In these matches, the total TV viewership stood at 400 million.

Citing data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), the company said that it had recorded a 24 per cent jump in television viewership ratings (TVR).

The company said that there was a jump of 59 per cent in viewership among kids aged between two and 14 years across all editions of IPL. 93.2 million kids tuned in to watch the live broadcast of the tournament.

Sanjog Gupta, head of sports at Disney Star, attributed the jump in viewership to better marketing, innovative sound programming and a greater buzz around the property as the matches are being played in 12 cities across the country.

Gupta added that Star Sports’ penetration has gone beyond 90 per cent of the pay-TV market for the first time ever due to the content deals that had been stitched with TV distribution platforms.
Demand for IPL ad inventory on TV has gone up after the ratings for the first match came out last week, he said.

The company had earlier said that it was witnessing record-breaking viewership from Hindi-speaking cities. Their channels witnessed 20.4 crore views from Hindi-speaking markets (HSM) for the first ten matches of the Indian Premier League, which is an increase of 29.5 per cent in comparison to the previous edition.

The significant centres for growth in HSM markets included UP, Bihar, MP, Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Haryana.

Disney Star had earlier bagged the television rights for the tournament for Rs 23,575 crore, and Reliance-backed Viacom18 got digital rights for Rs 20,500 crore.