Digital viewership takes a record leap in India-NZ semifinal

The official tournament social channels have added 12 million new followers in the space of six weeks and attracted 386 million engagements with fans.

Mitchell Santner of New Zealand dives in vain to try to stop a six from MS Dhoni in the semifinal match against India in Manchester.

 

The World Cup semifinal between India and New Zealand set a new world record of highest ever concurrent views on Hotstar with a peak of 25.3 million, according to TV and digital viewing figures released by the ICC on Friday.

The previous record was at 18.6 million.

There has been an unprecedented 2.6 billion video views across ICC’s digital and social platforms during the group stage. Meanwhile, the official tournament social channels have added 12 million new followers in the space of six weeks and attracted 386 million engagements with fans.

In addition, the official ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup website has been visited by 65 million users worldwide and has had more than 250 million page views

In the UK, the event has now reached a unique audience of 20 million people through Sky Sports’ live coverage and highlights on Channel 4.

The semifinal between England and Australia became the third-most watched match for the event on Sky Sports after England vs India and India vs Pakistan, attracting 465,000 new audience through live and highlights coverage.

Through ICC’s broadcast partners, which includes global partner Star Sports, the event has been televised over 220 territories on 46 separate TV channels and the group stages were watched by more than 675 million viewers.

Continuing the TV viewership records, England’s win over India at Edgbaston was the most watched cricket match within the United Kingdom across any format since 2006.

This match saw a unique audience of 3.45m on Sky Sports, with the audience peaking at 1.8m during India’s second innings run chase.

In India, the India vs Pakistan match delivered a rating of 14.8 across both Star and DD while the India vs England match delivered 18 million peak concurrent views on Hotstar.

While in South Africa, viewership is tracking 250 per cent higher than the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 with the most watched match in the Group Stage, South Africa v Bangladesh. This match saw an average audience of 1.13m tune in, as South Africa fought to chase Bangladesh’s first innings score of 330.

The old rivalry between England and Australia attracted an average audience of 587,000 in Australia, representing an increase of 504 per cent against the same match at the ICC Champions Trophy 2017.