390 million Indians watched ICC T-20 World Cup

India may have lost the final, but STAR Sports has emerged as the clear winner for broadcasting the 2014 ICC Twenty-20 World Cup, by registering record viewership on television as well as its website starsports.com.

According to TAM data provided by the sports broadcaster (for the all India market among cable and satellite viewers above four years old), the event registered a reach of 133.1 million. This is 23.4 per cent more than the reach generated in the 2012 edition and more than 57 per cent when compared with 2010 edition. When extrapolated to the country's total TV-watching population, according to standard industry conversions, about 390 million Indians watched the tournament, informs the broadcaster. This has even beaten the reach of the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League, which recorded a reach of 210 million.

The tournament, which kicked off on March 16 and concluded on April 6 with the final between India and Sri Lanka, was telecast on STAR Sports 1 and STAR Sports 3 apart from being streamed live on starsports.com.

In terms of viewership in thousands (TVT), the 2014 edition generated 1,22,2951 TVT, almost 45 per cent higher than the 844,400 TVT generated by the previous edition in 2012. The India matches, of course, attracted a lot viewership with an average of 672,861 TVT across six matches, almost doubling from 396,801 TVT in 2012.

The broadcaster attributes the good viewership numbers to innovations in production design, which gave viewers respite from the same style of presentation by sports broadcasters year on year. India's good performance, too, helped.

It also received encouraging response on starsports.com where Star India streamed the tournament live. The final itself attracted 1.93 million unique individuals to the video destination, delivering 3.76 million visits. Overall, starsports.com attracted more than 8.09 million users during the fortnight long tournament delivering more than 22.4 million visits.

The broadcaster informs that a total of 101 million live minutes of video were consumed by users during the last four matches played by India in the tournament, with an average of about 30 minutes per live view.

STAR Sports aimed to rake in Rs 380 crore in advertising revenues from the tournament and had six sponsors on board - Pernod Ricard, Hyundai Motors, Coca-Cola, Perfetti, State Bank of India and TVS Sricharkra (tyres).

"During this edition, we introduced innovations like the LED stumps; there was increased focus on analytics and graphics to augment consumer engagement. The invitation to the consumer was done via a high decibel 'Duniya Badlegi campaign' which generated global level engagement. We are enthused with the positive feedback on the unprecedented production and broadcast effort. This will motivate us further to set even higher benchmarks in the future," says Nitin Kukreja, head of sports business, Star India.

NEVER NOT OUT
| 133.1 mn Total reach of the event in India, 23.4% more than the reach generated in 2012
| 390 mn Number of Indians among the country's total TV-watching population who watched the event

| 1.93 mn Number of unique individuals who visited starsports.com to watch final
| 8.09 mn Number of users during the whole tournament
| 101 mn Live minutes of video consumed by users during the last four matches played by India in the tournament

Source: TAM data sourced from a sports broadcaster. All India, CS4+ for telecast on STAR Sports 1 and STAR Sports 3