JioCinema has broken its own record of viewership, with the viewership during the Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore match crossing 24 million. This is, so far, the highest viewership for any match in the current IPL 2023 season, with JioCinema breaking its own previous record of 22 million which was set on April 12. In the last over of the second innings of the match, the number of viewers on Jio Cinema reached 24 million. Chennai Super Kings won the thrilling match by 8 runs.
The BCCI awarded TV and digital broadcasting rights of the Tata IPL 2023 to different companies, and digital is seeing its direct benefit. JioCinema is streaming IPL matches for free this season for all, as the streaming platform does not have a subscription model as of now. This has further helped in bolstering IPL’s viewership through the growing popularity of digital streaming. Additionally, JioCinema has also improved the quality of the stream from this season, offering the IPL 2023 stream in up to Ultra-HD resolution for all matches, as well as offering multiple languages for commentary and graphics, and different user-selectable camera angles.
The achievement of 24 million viewers is particularly impressive, given that the final match of the 2019 season recorded the highest viewership on Disney Hotstar at 18.6 million, prior to JioCinema’s entry into the segment. IPL is currently in its league stage and as of now, JioCinema has broken all previous viewership records for the tournament. As the IPL moves towards the finals, the number of viewers on JioCinema is likely to increase further. The company claims that millions of new viewers are connecting to IPL daily through its streaming app.
The streaming service is expected to start charging a subscription fee following the conclusion of IPL 2023, and has also announced a massive film and web series slate of content set to come to the streaming platform in the coming months. The platform was also the streaming partner for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, although securing the rights for IPL has been a significant boost for JioCinema given India’s preference for cricket over other sports.