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

A total of 48.2 crore viewers tuned in to the live broadcast of TATA IPL 2023 for the first 66 matches on the Disney Star Network, the highest ever reach for any edition of IPL surpassing the previous highest registered in 2019, the media giant said citing BARC data.

The network’s television viewership ratings also spiked banking on the burgeoning popularity of the cash-rich cricket league that is scheduled to end on May 28. The on-year growth in weekly TVR stands at 43% for week 7. The overall TVR growth is 32% compared to the last edition after 66 games.

Last month, Disney Star said it had taken just 29 matches of this year’s edition of the cricket league to break the TV viewership record set in the whole of the 2022 edition. In 29 matches, the TV viewership hit over 40 crore, while it recorded a growth of nearly 24% in TVR in comparison to the last edition, according to BARC data.

This comes at a time when Disney Star is locked in a tussle this year with Viacom18 that won digital rights for the world’s second-richest league. The strategies were crucial to ramp up viewership on TV and on its network, which they call the ‘home of sports’.

IPL has seen a robust jump in viewership for both television and digital platforms in 2023.

JioCinema recorded 2.5 crore concurrent viewers during the first qualifier match between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings.Disney Star today said for the week 7, the Chennai Super Kings versus Kolkata Knight Riders match registered the highest peak concurrency of 4.2 crore, while the highest for the tournament so far this year was a peak concurrency of 5.6 crore for GT’s match against MS Dhoni-led CSK.

For week 7, four more matches registered peak concurrency of greater than 3 cr on Disney Star’s network, taking the tally of matches with peak concurrency greater than 3 cr to 40 for IPL 2023 so far.