New Delhi: Star Sports, the official broadcaster of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, said on Thursday that it has clocked more than 59 billion minutes of total viewing time across the first 11 matches of the tournament on linear television. This represents a 22% growth compared to the previous edition of the tournament in England.
The 11 matches include two matches for the Indian team against five-time world champions Australia and Afghanistan.
“Consumption among premium audiences witnessed significant growth, with audiences in NCCS A witnessing a growth of 40% and NCCS B growth of 24%,” the broadcaster added in a statement, citing data from BARC India. The tournament was watched by 268 million viewers with 96 million young professionals (aged 22-40), which is 5% higher than the 2019 edition. The tournament’s live simultaneous peak is 56 million viewers, recorded during the India-Australia match in Chennai on 8 October “
Earlier, Star’s digital platform, Disney+ Hotstar witnessed over 3.5 crore people tune in during the high-profile India-Pakistan match in Ahmedabad. Data for other matches, including the India-Pakistan match, will be released next week.
This achievement comes at a time when Disney+ Hotstar has been recording a continuous decline in the number of subscribers over the past three quarters. The decline came after Jio Cinema announced its serious foray into the streaming space and also bagged the rights to broadcast the IPL for the 2023 season.
Disney+ Hotstar is also offering free streaming of the ICC Men’s World Cup 2023 on mobile phones, while for connected TVs, it remains behind the paywall.
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Updated: October 19, 2023, 08:46 PM IST
