The official broadcaster of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, Disney Star has secured an all-time TV viewership record of 30 crore during the India-Australia final.
According to Disney Star, the final game has become the highest-viewed match on television ever.
In a statement citing BARC data, Disney Star announced that the competition reached a viewership of over half a billion people for the first time, with 518 million (51.8 crore) TV viewers tuning in for the live broadcast.
The grand finale of the multinational tournament received a staggering 13 crore concurrent viewers on TV, surpassing the record of the India-New Zealand league game, which received a peak concurrency of 8 crore. On the other hand, the digital platform Disney+ Hotstar once again had a record feast for the fifth time, as the encounter got 5.9 crore contemporaneous viewers, which is the highest for any sport globally on an OTT medium.
With 422 billion minutes of TV watch time, the 2023 edition has become the most viewed ICC Men’s World Cup in the event’s history.
A staggering 30 Crore fans watched the @cricketworldcup 2023 Final on TV making it the most watched event of any kind in Indian television history. Peak TV Concurrency also reached a historic high of 13 Crore (peak digital concurrency was 5.9 Crore, also a world record).
— Jay Shah (@JayShah) November 23, 2023
We are… pic.twitter.com/v5YCp0l04D
Expressing his remarks on this surreal success, K Madhavan, Country Manager & President, Disney Star, commented, “We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), for their invaluable support, making this tournament an overwhelming success. We would also like to thank the fans, who showered their support throughout the tournament and with their unwavering passion making this historic achievement possible. Disney Star is dedicated to paving the road for sports broadcast in India and it has been extremely encouraging to see growth across both, the linear and digital mediums, thereby increasing the fan base of cricket.
He also added, “This is testament to the uniqueness of the India market where linear and digital continue to grow alongside each other. This successful tournament has set the stage for a promising future in our association with the ICC.”
In the all-important final, Australia beat India by six wickets in Ahmedabad and lifted the silverware for the sixth time. The main architects behind the Aussie victory were Travis Head, who scored his fifth ton and Marnus Labuschagne, who gave full support from the other end to build a crucial game-changing partnership after an early stutter.