IPL 2017 shatters all viewership records

IPL vs ‘the Indian cricket’. These are two extreme contrasts. The market continued to flourish. The game about Team India and BCCI continued to plunge into crisis. The broadcast rights holder for the event that will involve Team India – ICC Champions Trophy – is worried. The official broadcaster for the game being played to ‘bazaar’ in an euphoric state. Commercial success of Indian Premier League is shattering all records.

The 10th IPL season has shattered all marks of viewership. Midway through the season the data for IPL 10 outnumbers the cumulative numbers of the entire season last year. Sony Pictures Network India, official broadcaster of the VIVO IPL has created history by garnering a cumulative reach of 363.9 million viewers with just 32 matches. In comparison, the 9th edition of IPL overall generated mere 361 million viewers for the entire season.

In its fourth week, the tournament’s viewership is at 22.3 million average impressions after 32 matches over last year’s 17 million average impressions over the same number of games. The tournament enjoys higher engagement with 64 minutes’ average time spent per viewer vis-à-vis 53 minutes last year for 32 matches.

Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh & Telangana, Gujarat, Karnataka and West Bengal continue to be top performing markets. Mumbai and Delhi are the leaders among metros. Sony Max continues to be the numero uno channel on all-India basis with 1.32 billion impressions. The channel’s impression has dropped 12% over the previous week.

Sony Six continues to top the sports genre with 39.69 crore impressions; its impressions in the previous week were 45.53 crore. Sony ESPN’s weekly impressions have shrunk by 14.11% to 10.04 crore compared to 11.69 crore impressions in the previous week.

The league is set to enter the knock-out phase. There will be more excitement, more viewer interest. It is clear that the 10th edition is heading for unprecedented, unforeseen viewership benchmarks.