MUMBAI: The IPL ratings might have fallen beyond expectations on television, but the response to online streaming of the matches has a different story to tell altogether.
The tournament‘s viewership on official YouTube channel and Indiatimes‘ IPL channel has seen an upward swing registering a 56 per cent growth over last year with the first week of the tournament, including the opening ceremony, recording 13.7 million views, as against 8.8 million views last year, according to Times Internet, the digital rights holder of IPL.
In contrast, the television viewership of the first six matches of IPL went down 12 per cent garnering average viewership of 3.76 TVR, compared to 4.63 TVR last year.
Coming to online viewership, New Delhi and Bangalore lead the viewership with 14 per cent each, with Mumbai coming in a close second at 13 per cent.
Among the matches registering maximum online views include the ones played on 10 April between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders, and Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Super Kings. The day saw a total of 2.15 million views on the site, which included 0.7 million unique visitors.
Almost 0.6 million viewers have enjoyed the match action on their mobiles over the last seven days on Apalya mobile TV platform across Airtel, Idea and Vodafone which is double the traffic registered last year, Times Internet said.
Times Internet Ltd CEO Rishi Khiani said, “Last year, we delivered a superior viewing experience and garnered significant audiences. This year, our emphasis is on higher interactivity and our strong social focus has paid off right at the start, becoming a sign of things to come over the season.”
Google India head of media sales Praveen Sharma said, "We’re really excited to see the continuous growth in online viewer ship of IPL. This is the third year of our association with live streaming of IPL and the viewer ship numbers clearly indicate the distributed media consumption pattern of the Indian consumers."
Earlier, Times Internet had roped in Coca-Cola, Samsung and Maruti as premium sponsors while Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hero Honda, Citi Bank, E Bay, and Karbonn Mobiles and Hindustan Unilever had come on board as associate sponsors.
While premium sponsors are paying between Rs 35 to Rs 50 million, the associate sponsors have forked out between Rs 15 to Rs 30 million.
