IPL On Jio Cinema Registers 147 Crore Views On The First Weekend

JioCinema, Indian Premier League (IPL)'s digital streaming partner, broke records with the highest weekend views ever at 147 crores, according to Viacom18.

The company disclosed that viewers spent an average of 57 minutes per match. Time spent per viewer per JioCinema match surged by 60 per cent from last season's debut weekend, when three matches were streamed on Disney+ Hotstar.

The platform gained 10 crore new viewers and five crore app downloads during the IPL weekend that started on 31 March, according to the company.

Viacom18 Sports CEO Anil Jayaraj was quoted saying that the exceptional numbers achieved by JioCinema this week are indicative of the digital revolution taking over the country, in a report by The Economic Times.

Digital platforms offer targetable, addressable and interactive services that enable exact measurement of the number of viewers, unlike legacy services which rely on subjective extrapolation from a small sample set.

Jio has upped the ante with several camera angles, including the ‘bird’s eye camera view’, which is as good as experiencing the game in a stadium.

The camera angles can be selected through the application with ease, and while there were some glitches on day-1, they are expected to smoothen out as the tournament progresses.

The icing on the cake was the multi-lingual commentary. While we have been accustomed to Hindi and English commentary, JioCinema had commentators in twelve languages! 

When it comes to commentators in regional languages, Jio has left no stone unturned when it comes to star power.

Notable names include Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble, and Suresh Raina in the Hindi team; Kedar Jadhav and Dhawal Kulkarni for Marathi; Jhulan Goswami for Bengali; Venkatesh Prasad for Kannada; Sarandeep Singh and Reetinder Singh Sodhi amongst others for Punjabi; and to everyone’s surprise, Ravi Kishan, who is a member of the Lok Sabha, was roped in to be a part of the Bhojpuri commentary team.