Star Sports claims over 59 bn minutes of watch time in first 11 World Cup matches

The 11 matches include two matches of the Indian side, against the five-time Champions Australia and Afghanistan.

“The consumption among premium audiences witnessed remarkable growth with audiences in NCCS A witnessing a growth of 40% and NCCS B growing by 24%,” the broadcaster added in a statement, citing data from BARC India. “Live broadcast for the first 11 matches of the tournament has been watched by 268 million viewers with 96 million young working professionals (aged 22-40) tuning in, which is 5% higher than the 2019 edition. The peak live concurrency for the tournament is 56 million viewers, registered during the India v Australia match in Chennai on October 8.”

Earlier the digital platform of Star, Disney+ Hotstar witnessed a concurrency of more than 3.5 crore people during the high-profile India vs Pakistan game in Ahmedabad. The data for the other matches, including India Vs Pakistan will be released next week.

The milestone comes at a time when Disney+ Hotstar is recording a continuous drop in subscribers from the past three quarters. The decrease came after Jio Cinema announced its serious entry into the streaming business and also won the rights to IPL streaming for the 2023 season.

Disney+ Hotstar is also offering free streaming of ICC Men’s World Cup 2023 on mobile phones, while for connected TVs, it remains behind the paywall.

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Updated: 19 Oct 2023, 08:46 PM IST