BARC and Nielsen released the third edition of their insights into TV, smartphone and audience behaviour highlighting the changes during the COVID-19 period.
All major sporting activities and live events across the globe has been kept on hold or cancelled due to the COVID 19 Pandemic.
Despite the absence of major live sports and other sporting events, the sports genre witnessed a surge of 21% in week 13 over week 12. For sports broadcaster’s the re-telecasting of old ICC, World Cup and WWE matches on sports channels has resonated well with the audiences.
As per reports, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and India vs Pakistan match witnessed 87% growth in viewership minutes, the launch of WWE Blockbusters on April 1, and the ICC CWC Sri Lanka and India match witnessed 52% growth in viewing minutes respectively on Thursday.
Recently, BCCI and Government of India had announced that they have decided to telecast cricket highlights from the 2000s, this gives a fillip to DD Sports, for the Indian cricket fans a sense of nostalgia to relive the spectacular 2000 era.
The 2000s cricket rewind 📽️📽️
The BCCI and Government of India bring you cricket highlights from the past.
Sit back and enjoy the action on @ddsportschannel.#StayHomeStaySafe @SGanguly99 @JayShah @ThakurArunS pic.twitter.com/nW3kePeAII
— BCCI (@BCCI) April 6, 2020
As per the BARC data for Week 13,the sports category also saw a good growth with Star Sports First being the most-watched channel with 74mn impressions followed by Star Sports 1 Hindi on the 2nd spot with 66mn impressions and Sony Ten 1 on the 3rd spot with 50mn impressions. For the last two spots on this category, we had Sony Ten 3 and Star Sports with 32mn impressions and 23mn impressions respectively.