MUMBAI: The Vivo Indian Premier League (IPL) player retention event reportedly had 8.1 million people tuning into the STAR network on television and digital.
The event was telecast on the Star Sports network, and streamed on Hotstar.
According to data points provided by STAR India after curating Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) viewership numbers (+2 years, urban and rural), 4.1 million watched the event on January 4 across the network and 4 million witnessed it on Hotstar.
Rahul Johri, chief executive officer, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), said, “The discovery and nurturing of great cricketing talent, and developing the infrastructure throughout the country are important pillars of our mission at BCCI. Therefore, a quantum increase in the growth and popularity of the VIVO IPL 2018 would immensely scale up deliveries on those important fronts. We are delighted that with the transformative technology and the might of TV and digital combined, the VIVO IPL 2018 seems poised to be bigger than ever before.”
Sanjay Gupta, managing director, Star India, said, “The unprecedented response to the retention event across TV and digital is early proof of what Star’s scale and Hotstar’s technology possibilities can accomplish. By offering the VIVO IPL to cricket fans lovers through both, the Star Sports network and Hotstar, Star India will be with the consumer at every viewing opportunity, unleashing enormous convenience and richness of content for the consumer and the advertiser.”
On social media, the event dominated conversations across platforms with 35,000 mentions making the VIVO IPL Retention Day comparable to the chatter during a T20 match. It was trending #1 in India on Twitter within minutes of the telecast.
Venky Mysore, CEO, Kolkata Knight Riders, said, “I was very impressed with the proactive approach of Star India with the first ever piece that was done on IPL retention on January 4. The ideas around the AV (audio/visual), graphics, involvement of the owners and management, and particularly the fans present at the event must have added a great deal of enjoyment to viewers of this programme.”
