Hotstar’s reach increases by 2.2 times for first three days of Vivo IPL 2019

The cash-rich Indian Premier League, in its first week-end of the 12th season, has witnessed a spike in the reach and viewership on Star India’s TV channels and OTT platform. The League had a reach of 135 million in the first three days according to the broadcaster. 

Both the watch time and reach has seen a growth by 2.2 times, compared to previous season. 

Last year, the OTT platform set a benchmark with 10.7 million concurrent viewers watching the Vivo IPL 2018 finals between CSK and SRH. 

The network reached 219 million TV viewers across India (urban+rural, TV and out of home) for the first three matches, registering a 31 per cent jump over previous year, according to BARC PreView Data. 

Gautam Thakar, CEO of Star Sports, was quoted by ET as saying, “We are very excited with the initial numbers of the opening weekend, which shows that this is going to be the biggest IPL ever, as promised by Star.” 

Reach in Hindi speaking markets (HSM) grew by 30 per cent to 79 million on the opening day, compared to 60 million year ago, while in South, reach was up by 20 per cent for the match between CSK and RCB.  

Last year, just ahead of IPL, BARC launched the BARC PreView service. This service enables subscribers to access the data of a specific event or show three days after it is telecast. 

Star India is airing IPL live across 24 channels in the country this season, up from 10 channels last year. In a bid to reach out to a wider audience the broadcaster is airing this season in eight different languages. The languages are Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi and Malayalam.