Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Sunrisers Hyderabad remains top viewed IPL match in 1st week

MUMBAI: The ninth season of the cash rich cricket entertainment extravaganza, Indian Premier League ( IPL), has opened to a decent start with 145.75 million impressions for the first seven matches across three channels – Sony Max, Sony Six and Sony ESPN – between April 9-15 as per BARC data for All India market.

The highest rated match of the tournament in its first week was the clash between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad, which clocked 24.137 million impressions, or in other words viewers, at any given point of time during the telecast.

The second most watched match was the one between Mumbai Indians and the new team, Rising Pune Supergiants, which attracted 24.12 million impressions. (see table for more)



While the viewership data is only for one week, the fact that most of the matches have remained one-sided with the teams chasing winning most of the times, may have affected the viewership.

In the recently concluded ICC World T20, the India matches had seen much better traction, even as the comparison is not on a like to like basis. For instance, the clash between arch rivals India and Pakistan itself had got 80.51 million impressions, while the one between India and Bangladesh had got 67.7 million impressions.