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Tag: hotstar.com

  • Cricket World Cup 2015 sets new viewership record

    Cricket World Cup 2015 sets new viewership record

    MUMBAI: The ICC World Cup 2015, till the semifinals stage, garnered 635 million viewers, which makes it the highest viewed event in Indian television.

     

    The unprecedented 635 million reach signifies that every second Indian tuned in to watch the biggest extravaganza of 50 overs cricket.

     

    A record 309 million Indians (TAM Panel CS4+ extrapolated to the universe using a standard conversion factor) tuned in to watch India’s semi-final clash with Australia on their televisions, as the two best teams in the world battled for a berth in the World Cup finals. The pivotal game was the most-watched cricket match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, and bettered the blockbuster India versus Pakistan group stage clash in terms of reach. The match rated 15.0 TVR across the Star network including DD and 12.7 TVR on Star Network and 2.3 TVR on DD. (TAM data M15+ ABC)

     

    This World Cup was truly a ‘Cup for All’ as the tournament was showcased in six different languages – Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada, apart from English and Hindi. The regional feed strategy proved successful with Hindi and regional feeds contributing to 77 per cent of the overall viewership. 

     

    Star India CEO Uday Shankar said, “The ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 has been an epic event in terms of scale, reach and following. With over 600 million viewers, largest aggregation of advertisers ever, and one of the most talked about marketing campaigns, this edition has validated that there is nothing bigger than the World Cup for Indian consumers. Fittingly for an event of such scale, Star India took the game of cricket to the next level redefining the viewer experience. The fans’ unflinching faith and passion for the game has abetted our efforts to make this World Cup bigger and better than ever before.”

     

    Led by Star India’s disruptive campaign on India’s World Cup journey, the passion and fan following for cricket as a sport scaled new heights. The ‘Mauka’ campaign, which met with tremendous response online and on social media, was inundated with spoofs and iterations making ‘Mauka’ the buzzword during the World Cup. The campaign went viral with over 33 million views online making it amongst the most viewed campaigns ever on digital in India.

     

    On the back of regional feeds, this edition saw advertising options for brands looking to associate with the World Cup. With many first time World Cup sponsors advertising on this edition, the advertiser count for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 has been the highest ever, 50 per cent more than the last edition held in India (2011).

     

    India was talking cricket online too with the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 scoring strongly on social media dominating conversations through the tourney; a record 750,000 authors driving 3.6 million conversations with a reach of over 44 billion potential impressions.

     

  • Star to stream IPL matches on Hotstar.com

    Star to stream IPL matches on Hotstar.com

    MUMBAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday awarded the global Internet and mobile rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) to Novi Digital Entertainment, a unit of Star India, for Rs 302.2 crore for a three-year period ending 2017.

     

    This time around, Star will stream the matches live on its newly launched Video On Demand (VOD) platform hotstar.com. In the last season, the matches were streamed at Star India’s sports VOD venture starsports.com, which works on paid subscription. While IPL 7 recorded 64 million video views on starsports.com, the broadcaster is expecting a jump of 50 per cent or more in the numbers this year.

     

    Starsports.com streams numerous sports event live and exclusive, which includes marquee football tourneys like Barclays Premier League, La Liga, FA Cup. The sports VOD platform will also stream ICC cricket world cup matches live.

     

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, a source from Star India said, “Pepsi IPL rights has been primarily bought for Hotstar. We formally launched Hotstar a week ago and its already above Whatsaap and Facebook in play store top free list. The VOD platform has drama, movies and sports and I am sure it is the next big thing.” The source added, “We are yet to decide whether we will stream IPL 2015 on Starsports.com.” 

     

    The decision to stream the matches on Hotstar.com indicates Star’s will to promote the venture. IPL is one of the biggest sports event in the calendar and would be the apt platform for Hotstar’s promotion.

     

    In a first for India, Indya Interactive Services (which runs Hotstar.com) earlier premiered the Star Guild Awards 2015 on the video on demand service on 17 January. The award function was aired on Star Plus a day later on 18 January.

  • Star India’s hotstar.com to premier Star Guild Awards 2015

    Star India’s hotstar.com to premier Star Guild Awards 2015

    MUMBAI: In the US, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon have taken the lead by streaming original series like House of Cards, Transparent, Orange is the New Black, Arrested Development, The Hot Wives of Orlando to their subscribers.

     

    Indian over the top services (OTTs) like BigFlix, Spuul, BoxTV, Sony Liv, ErosNow, DittoTV have been serving as aggregation models to stream linear channels or programmes to subscribers simultaneously or after they have been aired on TV.

    Now stealing a march on them is the Star India promoted online streaming services hotstar.com. In a first for India, Indya Interactive Services (which runs hotstar.com) announced that it will be premiering the Star Guild Awards 2015 on the video on demand service on 17 January from 7 pm onwards. The awards will be aired on Star Plus a day later on 18 January.

     

    A source close to the development says that this is the next big step towards change in the way content will be delivered to viewers and consumed by them.

    The Star India network, however, is going easy on the promotion of the VoD premiere:  ads were released today in leading dailies, even as 92.7 Big FM and YouTube had promos and commercials airing.  “The platform is still in the testing stage,” revealed the source. “Hence, it is just seeding the service to potential subscribers.”

     

    But at first glance, the hotstar.com service seems interesting as it offers a vast programming catalogue on mobile and the web. With everything found under one roof, the platform has all the genres that the network dabbles in – from popular dailies to live sporting events.

     

    In all it has around 20,000 hours content spread across seven languages, which include 120+ full length TV shows, 500+ movies and live screening of popular sports like cricket, football, tennis and kabbadi.

     

    A media planner labelled the Star Guild Awards VoD premier an experiment. Said he: “I believe it is just an initiative to kick start hotstar.com.  It is just for their internal learning process as the platform is still in its beta version. The Star Guild Awards will allow them to try and test whether the platform can manage the traffic and whether it can deliver a good experience to viewers. It also allows them to correct any errors if they do crop up.”

     

    Media observers believe that premiering the awards show is not going to really ruin the telecast on Star Plus on 18 January in terms of viewership ratings. He said: “People like you and me know about it because we are in the space. But do the millions of people who watch television also know about the VoD premier?  However, as a test, an experiment I think it is good as it could attract some subscribers to try the hotstar.com service.”

     

    That would be music for the Star India management ears. Under the leadership of CEO Uday Shankar it has been making some pioneering moves and initiatives; hotstar.com is another one of them.