Jio Cinema’s free streaming for FIFA World Cup and IPL (Indian Premier League) has created a significant impact in the market and on comsumers, prompting other platforms to follow suit. Disney+Hotstar has announced that users will be able to stream the upcoming ICC World Cup 2023 and Asia Cup for free on their mobile devices.
The move not just increases accessibility of live sports but also highlights the increasing competition in the streaming market. Free streaming has amplified the reach of massive properties like IPL pushing marketers to loosen their purse strings generously on digital advertisements.
Talking of advertisers, JioCinema, had a record-breaking season with IPL. The platform attracted over 800 advertisers. Advertisers naturally came for the reach. The sixteenth season of IPL clocked the highest-ever peak concurrency globally at 3.21 crore, and 1700 crore plus video views over the season.
The platform also touched over 12 crore unique viewers in the final match alone and saw 2.5 crore app downloads in a single day.
With free streaming, the OTT platform is also bundled in specialized programming. Offering seventeen simultaneous feeds in twelve languages, including many languages that were available for the first time.
Over 12.5 crore people tuned into the IPL on connected TV, and the average time spent per viewer per match was over 60 minutes, very similar to TV engagement.
In an earlier interview with Storyboard18 on the benefits of free streaming of IPL, Kumar Awanish, chief growth officer at Cheil India had said, with approximately 750-800 million smartphone users in the country, the free streaming of cricket matches has become widely accessible.
“Viewers can now enjoy entertainment on the go without any cost, carrying their favourite matches in their pockets and choosing their preferred screen size. The language barrier has also been addressed, with Jio introducing regional language options. This breakthrough has created a new segment for advertisers to target consumers based on their language preferences, resulting in stronger brand connections,” Awanish said.