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Tag: Cricbuzz

  • Planetcast Media Services sets new standards in live sports broadcasting

    Planetcast Media Services sets new standards in live sports broadcasting

    Mumbai: Planetcast Media Services is proud to announce its faultless delivery of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season, with zero downtime or glitches across 74 matches held in 13 stadiums. This exceptional performance continues Planetcast’s legacy of providing top-tier media services for major cricketing events, including the recent T20 World Cup (2 to 29 June), which ended with India defeating South Africa.

    Having established itself as a leader in seamless, high-quality broadcasting and streaming solutions, Planetcast has been a trusted technology partner for the IPL for the last 17 years and, in 2024, ensured that cricket fans enjoyed coverage of the T20 World Cup via Star Sports, Hotstar and Times Internet Group’s Cricbuzz. Planetcast’s advanced media services enabled the delivery of advertising of around $450 million for the IPL rightsholders (almost equally split between broadcast and digital platforms, and on par with the $465 million in 2023).

    For the 2024 IPL season, Planetcast provided the following services:

    1   Star Sports: Delivering domestic TV broadcast to 17 channels in 11 languages with services such as encoding, live transmission, playout, packaging, and delivery solutions.

    2   Viacom18: Supporting over-the-top (OTT) streaming on JioCinema.

    3   Times Internet: Facilitating international OTT streaming and playout for Cricbuzz.

    “Our long-standing partnership with IPL rightsholders underscores our capability to handle live events of significant scale that generate advertising revenues of $450 plus million,” said Planetcast Media Services’ CEO Sanjay Duda. “With the financial stakes so high, it’s critical that we remain dedicated to performing flawlessly and that we enhance match coverage across all the platforms we handle. We are also incredibly excited to have provided media services for the T20 World Cup, which concluded last weekend with India hoisting the trophy after the exciting win against South Africa.”

    The IPL’s exponential growth is evident in the record-breaking viewership figures year after year. Star Sports, Disney Star’s broadcasting channel for IPL 2024, drew a record-breaking audience of 546 million over the first 67 matches, according to figures from India’s Broadcast Audience Research Council. JioCinema’s streaming figures show a 38 per cent increase in viewers streaming IPL in 2024 over 2023, with 620 million viewers watching matches on the Viacom 18 service. IPL’s opening 2024 match alone attracted 111 million fans on JioCinema, marking a staggering 51 per cent increase from the year before.

    Building on its IPL success, Planetcast is also providing comprehensive services for the T20 World Cup, including:

    1   Star Sports: Managing the world feed via satellite, covering 17 channels in three languages, and providing encoding, live transmission, playout, packaging, and delivery solutions.

    2   Hotstar: Delivering disaster recovery services, channel content replacement, and vertical feed delivery.

    3   Times Internet Group (Cricbuzz): Implementing AI-based editing for instant highlight creation, near-real-time ad insertion, and graphic insertion and playout for the US market.

  • WCL goes super big in broadcasting with Star Sports in India

    WCL goes super big in broadcasting with Star Sports in India

    Mumbai: The World Championship of Legends (WCL), featuring iconic cricket players from around the globe, is thrilled to announce its official broadcasting partners for various regions worldwide. This partnership ensures that cricket enthusiasts across different continents can experience the tournament live.

    • India: Star Sports
    • North America: Willow by Cricbuzz
    • MENA Region: Cricbuzz
    • Sub-Saharan Africa: SuperSport
    • United Kingdom: TNT Sports
    • Australia: Fox Sports

    The WCL, approved by the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and presented by travel company EaseMyTrip, will take place from 3 to 13 July at Edgbaston and Northamptonshire County Cricket Club in the UK. It brings together legendary players for an unforgettable series of matches.

    World Championship of Legends’ owner Harshit Tomar stated: “We are excited to provide fans with the chance to see cricket legends in action once again. With our global broadcasting partners, we can reach a wide audience and celebrate the spirit of cricket worldwide. Partnering with Star Sports will bring WCL to a broad audience in Asia, ensuring top-notch coverage of this historic event.”

    The WCL will feature teams from India, Australia, West Indies, England, Pakistan, and South Africa. The tournament includes cricket legends such as:

    • India Champions: Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Suresh Raina
    • Australia Champions: Brett lee , Aaron Finch , Shaun Marsh, Ben Cutting
    • West Indies Champions: Chris Gayle,Daren Sammy, Dwayne smith
    • England Champions: Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Samit Patel
    • Pakistan Champions: Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Younis Khan
    • South Africa Champions: Jacques Kallis , JP duminy,Dale Steyn

    Fans in Asia can watch all the live action on Star Sports channels and the Fancode platform.

  • FIFS onboards Joy Bhattacharjya as director-general

    FIFS onboards Joy Bhattacharjya as director-general

    Mumbai: Self-regulatory industry body for fantasy sports, the Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS) on Friday announced the appointment of Joy Bhattacharjya as its director-general. In this role,  Bhattacharjya will oversee the functioning of the body and work with policymakers and industry stakeholders alike.  

    The organisation said that he is a well-known figure in the sports & media entertainment industry of the country and can be rightly hailed as the ‘Godfather of Fantasy Sports in India.’ From designing India’s first ever fantasy sports game – the Super Selector for ESPN Star Sports, to coming onboard FIFS – it is a perfect synergy, said FIFS.   

    He also runs the Prime Volleyball League and is a cricket analyst with Cricbuzz. As Fifa U-17 World Cup 2017 project director he delivered the most attended and successful junior tournament in the history of FIFA.  

    In his earlier roles he has held the position of Kolkata Knight Riders team director and History & National Geographic as head of programming – South Asia. He was also the first Indian head of production at ESPN Star Sports. He is an avid writer, having written for the likes of TOI, India Today, BBC, The Telegraph and the Hindustan Times, has a regular quiz column with the Hindu Business Line and also writes on sport for the Economic Times.  

    FIFS chairman Bimal Julka said, “Happy to have Joy Bhattacharjya join FIFS as the director-general. FIFS will benefit from his sports expertise and knowledge of fantasy sports.”  

    Bhattacharjya added, “I am elated to be a part of the next stage of development of Fantasy Sports in the country. It’s a homecoming for me in a way, from launching the Super Selector in 2000, to now leading FIFS – India’s only SRO for Fantasy Sports. I look forward to working with the FIFS members and the stakeholders at large and help FIFS identify the landscape and potential for India to be the global leader in the fantasy sports sector.”

  • Cricbuzz see significant consumption spike in IPL 2020, overshadows other cricket apps

    Cricbuzz see significant consumption spike in IPL 2020, overshadows other cricket apps

    IPL 2020, one of the most awaited events finally started on 19th September 2020 in the UAE. This year's IPL came as a respite to eager fans who have had to await a long absence of cricket. BCCI secretary Jay Shah, on Twitter, shared that 20-crore people watched the opening match of IPL 2020. 

    Indian cricket news website and mobile app, Cricbuzz, also saw a significant jump in users and traffic. The initial week of the IPL season saw a 15% growth in DAUs and a massive 115% increase in video views on Cricbuzz. Over 80 million users used Cricbuzz in the first 10 days of this IPL season. The most exciting match of the season was Royal Challengers Bangalore versus Mumbai Indians, where MI pushed the contest against RCB to a Super Over – Cricbuzz witnessed 20% higher consumption than the average consumption of first 10 matches of IPL 2020. This recent spike has further consolidated Cricbuzz’s position at the summit of top cricket apps

    Pankaj Chhaparwal, CEO of Cricbuzz said, “The global pandemic had starved the country of cricketing action. The IPL has come as a welcome change and lifted everybody’s spirits. Given its leadership in cricket content, Cricbuzz has witnessed a surge that surpassed our expectations. We are expecting the growth curve to accelerate as the tournament progresses and we’ll aim to give audiences the most relevant and compelling cricket content.”
     

  • Over 4.8 million Tweets as the Cricket season begins

    Over 4.8 million Tweets as the Cricket season begins

    MUMBAI: The summer of cricket is here and the conversation continues to heat up on Twitter. Since the start of March, there’s been over 4.8 million Tweets on cricket from teams, players and fans alike. India explodes with Tweets on cricket over the opening weekend with close to 1.4 million Tweets. The conversation goes global (as shown in the heatmap below) as the cricket season kicks off!

    This year, fans can look forward to highlight clips and live coverage from Cricbuzz (@Cricbuzz) of their pre-show, mid-innings, and post-show coverage featuring top names in the sport like Harsha Bhogle, Gaurav Kapur, and Virender Sehwag. Twitter has also partnered with NDTV (@NDTV) to offer fans live pre- and post-match video commentary as well as customized graphic explainers and scorecards to get them the latest happenings during the cricket season.

    “Twitter is the best place to see what's happening in the world of sports, especially this summer of cricket. We are pleased to have Cricbuzz and NDTV to bring cricket fans on Twitter exclusive live content on their favourite game,” says Rahul Pushkarna, Head of Content Partnerships, Twitter Asia Pacific.

    "Cricket is consistently one of the world's largest conversation drivers on Twitter and we expect to see more engagement from fans and brands alike as the season heats up," he added. "Back by popular demand we have emojis for all your favorite cricket teams like Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings and so many more."

  • Twenty20: CSA may curtail plans, reduce licence fee as broadcast rights decline

    Twenty20: CSA may curtail plans, reduce licence fee as broadcast rights decline

    MUMBAI: Cricket South Africa (CSA) may be planning to reduce its franchise fees, as it girds up its loins for for GT20. CSA is in the process curtailing its Twenty20 Global League plans, and will reduce the fees for franchises as it faces declining broadcast rights.

    CSA had earlier demanded $5m to lease a Tier One franchise and $3m for the others, but the rates have been brought down since the owners’ income expectations have also reduced, Cricbuzz reported.

    A reduced figure is also apprehended from the Indian telecast rights, bringing down the owners’ expected earnings from their main income source. With player fee bills almost fixed, the 18-man team will cost owners over $1m per season – the only significant expense that can be reduced by franchises is the fee.

    While CSA had expected that the Global T20 would give it a dependable income outside of incoming tours from England, India, and Australia, its inability to secure a good rights deal has put the ambitions in a jeopardy.

    It is learnt that production costs – that may be around $ 100,000 each for the 57 matches – will be borne by CSA, further cutting into their margins.

  • ABP continues to capture most video views on Facebook in Aug ’17: Vidooly

    ABP continues to capture most video views on Facebook in Aug ’17: Vidooly

    MUMBAI: For the second month on the trot, it has stayed at the top. Repeating its performance of July 2017, the Hindi news TV channel ABP News, has netted the most viewed videos, according to Vidooly’s most popular ‘Facebook Video Publishers’ from India report for August 2017.

    ABP News was the numero uno on the list with around 290 million views, even as sister channels — ABP Live and ABP Majha — captured the fifth and sixth slots with 132 million and 120 million views, respectively.

    Aaj Tak came a close second with around 227 million total views for its videos. Dainik Bhaskar was at the third position with 202 million views, and Vijay Television at No 4 with 140 million views.

    Star Plus occupied the 22nd spot with 50 million views while Zee News occupied the 26th position with 48 million views. IndiaTV News was at the 29th position with 42 million views.

    Dainik Jagran stood at number 21 with a total viewership of 51 million leaving behind News18 Hindi at the 33rd spot. The business channel Quint was placed at the position of 59, Times Now remained at the position of 100, garnering only 12 million views on its page in August.

    Video marketing and analytics software Vidooly has launched a report that analyses top Facebook pages from India that focus on online videos. The ranking is based on the number of views clocked only for the month of August 2017 and does not consider pages of political parties/personalities, pages that freeboot videos or only upload video memes, pages of movie stars, singers or brands like Amazon, Cadbury, etc.

    The report has been broadly categorised into eight major genres — food, lifestyle, new age entertainment, traditional entertainment, new age news, traditional news, independent creators, and sports creators. And, it rates pages according to popularity (number of likes) and video viewership.

    In the sports category, SportsKeeda Wrestling generated more viewership than ESPNCricinfo and Cricbuzz while Lallantop continued to remain the most viewed Facebook page in the category of new-age news.

    National Geographic India became the top channel in traditional entertainment with 61 million Facebook page likes beating Zoom, MTV India and Colours channel.

    In the traditional news space, Hindi news channel Aaj Tak became the most liked page on Facebook followed by ABP News and Dainik Jagran in the second and third places, respectively.

    Vidooly will soon launch its report for YouTube Creators for the month of September. It will be interesting to see that report to find how well are Youtubers leveraging the digital platform.

  • Cricbuzz touches 1.5 billion visits during IPL 2016; users consumed 30 billion pageviews

    Cricbuzz touches 1.5 billion visits during IPL 2016; users consumed 30 billion pageviews

    MUMBAI:  The 9th edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) witnessed a 40 per cent higher viewership than the 2015 edition on Cricbuzz.

    According to Comscore, over 3.7 million users accessed the Cricbuzz desktop site in India in April . In the WT20, 6.63 million users accessed Cricbuzz.

    Cricbuzz received 30 billion page views across its properties during IPL 2016, with users together spending over 24 billion minutes (equivalent to over 45667 years). Across platforms, Cricbuzz averaged 14 million Daily Active Users, and on the final on May 29th, Cricbuzz saw 18.9 million users.

    This online engagement threw some stimulating insights on fan-preferences in polls conducted by Cricbuzz, where over 2.5 million users participated.

    Most Exciting Player

    Virat Kohli

    Best Captain

    Virat Kohli

    Best Emerging Player

    Mustafizur Rahman

    Best Overseas Player

    AB de Villiers

    The 5 most followed league matches as per Cricbuzz data were:

    1.      RCB v RPS (May 7)

    2.      RPS v GL (Apr 29)

    3.      KKR v RCB (May 16)

    4.      KXIP v RCB (May 9)

    5.      RCB v MI (May 11)

    These trends and data reveal that Virat Kohli and the Royal Challengers Bangalore were the toast of this year’s IPL and Dhoni continued to be a crowd puller.

     Commenting on the development, Cricbuzz CEO Pankaj Chhaparwal said, “Cricbuzz is quickly becoming the default platform for every cricket fan, and we’re humbled by the response. We consider this traction as a feedback from our users in terms of our services and we look forward to keeping our users entertained in times to come.”

  • Cricbuzz touches 1.5 billion visits during IPL 2016; users consumed 30 billion pageviews

    Cricbuzz touches 1.5 billion visits during IPL 2016; users consumed 30 billion pageviews

    MUMBAI:  The 9th edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) witnessed a 40 per cent higher viewership than the 2015 edition on Cricbuzz.

    According to Comscore, over 3.7 million users accessed the Cricbuzz desktop site in India in April . In the WT20, 6.63 million users accessed Cricbuzz.

    Cricbuzz received 30 billion page views across its properties during IPL 2016, with users together spending over 24 billion minutes (equivalent to over 45667 years). Across platforms, Cricbuzz averaged 14 million Daily Active Users, and on the final on May 29th, Cricbuzz saw 18.9 million users.

    This online engagement threw some stimulating insights on fan-preferences in polls conducted by Cricbuzz, where over 2.5 million users participated.

    Most Exciting Player

    Virat Kohli

    Best Captain

    Virat Kohli

    Best Emerging Player

    Mustafizur Rahman

    Best Overseas Player

    AB de Villiers

    The 5 most followed league matches as per Cricbuzz data were:

    1.      RCB v RPS (May 7)

    2.      RPS v GL (Apr 29)

    3.      KKR v RCB (May 16)

    4.      KXIP v RCB (May 9)

    5.      RCB v MI (May 11)

    These trends and data reveal that Virat Kohli and the Royal Challengers Bangalore were the toast of this year’s IPL and Dhoni continued to be a crowd puller.

     Commenting on the development, Cricbuzz CEO Pankaj Chhaparwal said, “Cricbuzz is quickly becoming the default platform for every cricket fan, and we’re humbled by the response. We consider this traction as a feedback from our users in terms of our services and we look forward to keeping our users entertained in times to come.”