IPL 2023: Jio Cinema’s viewership is already higher than Disney+ Hotstar’s peak viewership last year

The Indian Premier League (IPL) has been a phenomenon since its inception in 2008. Over the years, the marquee cricket tournament has emerged as one of the biggest cricketing events in the world, with millions of fans tuning in to catch the excitement. Jio Cinema reported 147 crore views on the opening weekend of IPL 2023, which was higher than the entire Season of TATA IPL on Disney+ Hotstar last year. Last year, the match between Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) saw peak viewership of over 87 lakh viewers on Hotstar followed by the match between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, where over 83 lakh viewers watched the match on the digital platform.  

Mukesh Ambani-backed Viacom18 won digital streaming rights from 2023 to 2027, for Rs 23,758 crore ($2.89 billion), which Disney previously held. The reasons for this growth, experts say, is that Jio Cinema is free for at least a year while Disney + Hotstar charged a starting price of Rs 299 per month.  

"Historically, we have seen 450 to 500 million users watching at least one of the sporting events within the entire IPL season. Post Covid, there were a lot of disruptions and this year with the broadcasters changing and TV and digital rights being sold for a huge amount, the scale is very different. Over the years a lot more users are coming on to the digital platforms for IPL and other events,” said Ujjwal Chaudhry, partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants

IPL viewership was on the rise in 2021 with 421 million views, compared to 375 million and 325 million in 2020 and 2019, respectively. This year, the digital viewership numbers are expected to touch 523 million on Jio Cinema. According to Elara Capital, Hotstar India will see a significant impact of digital IPL rights going to Jio Cinema and that it will see a loss of subscribers towards June quarter due to IPL.

Jio Cinema said that the time spent per viewer per match on increased by over 60 per cent compared to last season’s first weekend. The average time spent per viewer per match was 57 minutes in the opening weekend, which is 60 per cent higher than the average viewer per match during the opening weekend of last season on Disney+Hotstar, show industry estimates.  

“These numbers are exceptional and evidence of the digital revolution sweeping through the country. Digital is targetable, addressable and interactive. Unlike legacy services, measurement on digital is based on the exact number of people who come in to watch and not based on subjective extrapolation from a small sample set. The landscape for content consumption has irrevocably moved to digital and Jio Cinema performance this week is the biggest evidence of it,” said Viacom18 Sports CEO Anil Jayaraj.  

Experts believe that the glitches and buffering issues on the app could lead to some viewers flocking to television. “While we’re talking about TV versus digital, a lot of users are watching it on TV (as in streaming). The screen proliferation is one big phenomenon which is going to drive a lot of change in the way users engage with the event itself. The same users are watching it on mobile phone are also watching it on TV. It’s no more TV versus digital as much as it is about cable versus OTT,” Chaudhry said.  

To improve its digital engagement, Jio Cinema said it is set to release new features every week. It has partnered with over 500 OEM and connected TV (CTV) platforms, including Jio STB, Apple TV, Amazon Firestick, OnePlus TV, Sony, Samsung, LG, and Xiaomi, among others. In addition, CTV viewers will also have access to IPL in 4K for the first time.     

This season of IPL will have 74 matches between 10 teams. Each team will play seven matches on its home turf and seven away matches and the 2023 final will be played on May 28, 2023.

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