IPL attracts 14m online views

The Indian Premier League (IPL) website recorded 13.7 million views, as against 8.8 million views last year in the first week of the tournament, including the opening ceremony.

New Delhi and Bangalore lead the viewership with 14% each, with Mumbai coming in a close second at 13%. This leap reflects the growing trend of watching IPL matches online via live webstreaming. This year, the IPL website offers a virtual battleground for fans to fight it out, which got 1.5 million engagements in the first week.

The matches registered the maximum online views on 10 April for the matches between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders, and between Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Super Kings. The day saw a total of 2.15 million views on the site, which included 0.7 million unique visitors.

Viewers also lined up to watch IPL live webstreaming on their mobile, as almost 0.6 million viewers enjoyed the match action on their mobiles over the last seven days on Apalya mobile TV platform across Airtel, Idea and Vodafone. This is double the traffic registered last year.

“This year, our emphasis is on higher interactivity,” says Rishi Khiani, CEO, Times Internet Ltd who run the website in partnership with Google-owned YouTube.

Praveen Sharma, Head of Media Sales Google India says, “The viewership numbers clearly indicate the distributed media consumption pattern of the Indian consumers.”