ITV

Tag: ICC Champions Trophy

  • JioStar blitzes in FY 2025, clocks Rs 10,006 crore in revenue since merger

    JioStar blitzes in FY 2025, clocks Rs 10,006 crore in revenue since merger

    MUMBAI: JioStar is scripting a blockbuster success story, delivering a knockout performance since its merger launch on 14 November 2024. The entertainment juggernaut reported gross revenues of Rs 10,006 crore and an EBITDA of Rs 774 crore, posting a margin of 7.7 per cent — all while still ramping up operations.

    At the heart of this meteoric rise lies JioHotstar, the OTT powerhouse that debuted on 14 February 2025 and rapidly changed the game. Within just five weeks, JioHotstar crossed the milestone of 100 million paid subscribers — a feat unrivalled in the Indian streaming landscape. By March-end, monthly active users (MAUs) hit a staggering 503 million, thanks to a blockbuster calendar packed with the ICC Champions Trophy, IPL, and a digital library boasting over 320,000 hours of content.

    Sport was JioStar’s turbocharger with IPL 2025 opening with fireworks, clocking 1.4 billion digital views (a 35 per cent spike year-on-year), 253 million TV viewers (up 14 per cent), and a colossal 49.6 billion minutes of total watch time across platforms (up 33 per cent). JioHotstar alone posted a dazzling 38 per cent jump in digital viewership, buoyed by a 47 per cent surge in connected TV (CTV) audiences and a 60 per cent higher CTV watch time.

    The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 turned out to be another mega-hit, recording the highest TV ratings ever for a multi-nation cricket tournament in India. The tournament delivered a 4.3 TVR — a 23 per cent gain over the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 — and set a new peak concurrency record with a staggering 61.2 million live viewers during the final.

    JioStar also scored with the Tata WPL season 3, which posted a 19 per cent ratings lift and expanded its reach by 49 per cent. On JioHotstar, WPL viewership surged by 34 per cent, underpinned by a massive 130 per cent growth in CTV engagement.

    In a strategic brand play, all sports channels were unified under the Star Sports banner, now comprising 24 channels — with dedicated Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada sports offerings to deepen regional footprints.
    Beyond cricket fever, JioHotstar is claimed to be reshaping entertainment with a new wave of digital experiences. The Mahashivratri night live-stream drew an impressive 39 million views, while Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour streamed live to 8.3 million fans, bringing global experiences closer to Indian audiences.

    A new content vertical, “Sparks,” featuring short, snappy segments from India’s top digital superstars, has tapped into the nation’s appetite for quick-binge entertainment — a strategic play to capture Gen Z and millennial attention spans.

    Coupled with its arsenal of premium OTT originals and international content, JioHotstar is fast positioning itself as the de facto platform for premium digital storytelling.

    While the digital frontier blazed ahead, linear TV continued to deliver knockout blows.

    Star Plus cemented its dominance as India’s top Hindi GEC, with six out of the top 10 shows under its belt. Star Gold’s premiere of Stree 2 garnered a reach of 41.2 million, further reinforcing its draw among movie buffs.
    Regional GECs — Star Pravah (Marathi), Star Jalsha (Bengali), Star Maa (Telugu), Star Vijay (Tamil), and Asianet (Malayalam) — retained their #1 spots across states, showcasing JioStar’s deep local connect.

    Meanwhile, niche genres — Kids, Youth, and English — remained the network’s unchallenged playgrounds, extending JioStar’s leadership across every major viewer segment.

    In less than six months post-merger, JioStar has not just delivered on audacious promises — it has rewritten the rulebook. With a dominant hold across digital and linear entertainment, record-breaking sports audiences, and an evolving playbook for new-age content, JioStar is emerging as India’s undisputed entertainment giant.

    As Reliance’s media empire keeps building momentum, it’s clear that for rivals, the chase is only getting harder.

  • TV viewership remains consistent QoQ, each year: BARC

    TV viewership remains consistent QoQ, each year: BARC

    MUMBAI: The latest All India Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) report studied the seasonal nature of television audience with respect to the viewership data over the past two years. BARC made an attempt to uncover some trends and insights that may be of value to the stakeholders for anticipating and formulating annual plans.

    According to the report, TV viewing pattern remains consistent quarter on quarter, each year. Q2 (April-June) of the calendar year is traditionally the least performing quarter, as the viewership is seen to dip during this period. As the holiday season ends, viewership starts picking up in Q3 (July-September). The quarter witnessed a growth of five per cent in overall TV viewership from 2016 to 2017.

    Q4 (October-December) is the strongest quarter of the year with respect to TV viewership. However, this quarter witnessed the least growth of 1 per cent in 2017 over the same quarter in 2016. A lot of special, festive programming occurs in this quarter in lieu of Diwali, Christmas, New Year, and hence viewership may be maxed out in this season.

    The report also said that on a weekday, more viewership is garnered during a festival or a public holiday. Republic Day and Independence Day witness significantly high TV viewership, as viewers tune in to watch the live parade, President’s address, and other special programming such as patriotic movies that are aired to commemorate the occasion.

    Students and the working population get an extra day off in the middle of their hectic week prefer to stay at home and relax, while on long weekends they step out and enjoy the extended holiday. Hence, mid-week holidays typically witness better TV viewership than those on a long weekend.  

    On the genre trends, the report mentioned that the GEC did not observe major fluctuations across the year. Award shows and finale episodes of popular reality shows are the reason for the hike in the GEC genre. The programming strategy or airing blockbuster movies and premiers or world premiers led to the growth of movie genre.

    Also, a rise in viewership on movie channels is observed during Independence Day and T20 cricket tournaments. In addition to the movies genre, the kids genre too exhibits regular viewership spikes due to increased consumption of such channels on a weekend as opposed to a weekday.

    The music genre’s viewership share is similar to that of the kids genre among the 15+ audience. The genre seems to be growing with an upward linear trend. In the infotainment and youth genre, the latter is stable and consistent while the former exhibits a slightly downward trend line.

    During telecast of big-ticket properties such as the T20 World Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy, the average viewership of the sports genre surpassed the highest average viewership for GEC genre on a given day during the two-year period.

  • Jawahar Goel raises alarm of emerging Star cricket monopoly (updated)

    Jawahar Goel raises alarm of emerging Star cricket monopoly (updated)

    MUMBAI: Jawahar Goel loves stirring up a hornets’ nest. And this is him at his inimitable best. The TV industry old timer and chairman & MD of India’s largest satellite TV distribution platform Dish TV, Goel has sent out a letter to the ministry of information & broadcasting, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Competition Commission of India and the Board of  Control for Cricket in India in which he has warned all of them of Star India’s emerging sports telecast monopoly in India in case it manages to acquire the rights to India’s hottest cricketing property the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the next five years.

    Goel’s letter has come at a time when bidding for the IPL is ending. And bids will be opened to decide who will be delivering the tournament to Indian viewers over the next five years. For Star India, it is important that it gets the rights as it has been investing in sport very heavily over the past decade under the leadership of its India chairman Uday Shankar. 

    Goel or Jawaharji (as he is known in the industry) writes in the letter  that “Star also has the Global Media Rights for Asia Cup (Asia Cup, Women’s Asia Cup, Emerging Asia Cup and U19 Asia Cup) including TV, audio, internet and mobile rights for all territories globally for the period from 2016 to 2023, the Global broadcast rights for all ICC Events which includes exclusive live and highlights rights across all platforms for ICCmajor events – the ICC Cricket World Cup and its qualifiers, the ICCWomen’s World Cup, the ICCWorld Twenty20 and its qualifiers, the ICC Champions Trophy and the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup for the period from 2015-2023. In addition to the above, Star also has the rights for all the bilateral series of the Cricket Broads of Australia, England and Bangladesh and today the situation is such that except for Indian Premier League (IPL), Star has the rights for all the cricketing events to be shown in India for the next 6-7 years.”

    He further writes: “With this objective in view and in order to further strengthen its monopolistic position in the field of media distribution rights, the Star has initiated various measures which would have far reaching ramifications and shall have adverse impact on every stakeholder in the broadcasting industry, starting from the distributors of the TV channels like the DTH operators and ultimately the end consumers. The history of the media industry is witness to the fact that all the actions initiated by Star till date have always been to economically concentrate the power through acquisition of Cricket Broadcast Rights and thereby create a monopoly in the market to gain huge commercial advantage at the expense of the Consumers and the Distribution Industry. Since this is a very critical issue, it requires immediate attention of BCCI.”

    He adds:  “In order to serve its long term objective of charging the exorbitant price for its sports channels containing cricketing content, the Star has challenged the authority/jurisdiction of TRAI itself to fix the price of TV channels and the matter is pending before the Hon’ble High Court of Judicature at Madras.”

    In the letter he further alleges that DTH provider Tata Sky has also gone to court against TRAI’s Tariff Order and is working in cahoots with Star India. 

    He also questions the fact that “Star has also challenged the Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) Act, 2007 which provides for mandatory sharing of sporting events of national importance with the Prasar Bharati to enable them to re-transmit the same on its terrestrial networks and Direct-to-Home networks. It is pertinent to mention in this regard that the enactment of the said statute was only a view to provide access to the largest number of listeners and viewers, on a free to air basis, of sporting events of national importance which inter alia include the major cricket events involving the Indian team.The effort of Star has been to capture the entire broadcasting rights for all cricket events to the exclusion of others and become the ‘sole supplier’ without even sharing its signals/feed with the national broadcaster i.e. Doordarshan.”

    Jawaharji believes that “Star does not have the telecast rights for IPL, which are presently held by Sony Pictures. Once Star acquires the telecast rights for IPL as well, not only will the market share in terms of viewership of Star would skyrocket but also the distribution platforms such as DTH and Multi System Operators will have no choice but to subscribe the Star Sports channels for cricket content because of Star’s monopolistic position as a sole holder of cricket telecast rights. As per the data released by BARC,in terms of reach, Star channels had a reach of 71% during the time of Champions Trophy for the period between 01.06.17-18.06.17, whereas Sony Pictures, during the IPLsession of 05.04.17-14.05.17 had a reach of 88%. In a situation where Star also has the rights for IPL, its channels’ reach would have gone up to approximately 85% during IPL also.  Once this happens, this would enable the Star to exorbitantly price their sports channels and would also result in the Star being able to extort very high advertisement rates which is estimated to be in the range of about 2050 Crore which would constitute about 93% of total advertisement revenue earned by all sports channels in India (please refer Annexure IV). It is a matter of record that in the Year 2010, Star had fixed the rate of Rs. 9000 per subscriber per month for its HD Channels. Such a situation may again arise in case the Star is able to create a monopoly over the cricket broadcast rights. In addition, this may also result into Star making – “subscribrlng to its sports channels” – as a precondition for availing any other channel of Star. This would sound the death kneel for all other sports channels operating in India and is blatantly anti-competitive.”

    He finally exhorts that,   “with BCCI going to auction the telecast rights for IPLin next few days, we would expect BCCl led by the COA to act in a manner so as to safeguard and protect the competition in the industry as well as to prevent the creation of any kind of monopoly to the detriment of public interest. The acquisition of the IPL telecast rights by Star would lead to a situation where there will be an absolute monopoly thereby leading to dominance by Star in the field of cricketing telecast rights where Star will not only compel the distributors of TV channels such as the DTH operators to pay exorbitant price for their channels but also make the ultimate consumers to shell more and more money from their pockets. Such a situation would not only be anti-competitive but also anti- consumers as well.”

    Till the time of writing this report, Indiantelevision.com could not get across to relevant people in Star India, including India chief Uday Shankar, for a reaction to allegations leveled by Goel in his letter.

    To read the letter in its totality…please click here…

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    Star India wins: SC disallows Prasar from retransmitting shared sports feed live

    PKL rural telecast exceptionally propels Star Sports First to top

  • Sports channels ratings dive in week 26

    BENGALURU: After the culmination of the recent ICC Cricket Champions Trophy 2017 in the UK, the ratings of the sports genre has taken a huge hit, going by Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) weekly data for Top 5 Sports channels and Top 5 Sports programmes (All India (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals).

    Until mid-year (week 26 of 2017: Saturday, 24 June 2017 to Friday, 30 June 2017), the top combined weekly impressions (CWI) of the top 5 sports channels peaked in week 23 (Saturday, 3 June 2017 to Friday, 9 June 2017) during which the sum of the weekly impressions of all the five channels was 1,450.328 million impressions. Weeks 24 and 25 saw a progressive decline in the CWI and week 26 has seen the combined ratings of the Sports genre plummet to a little more than a fourth (fall by 3.71 times) of week 23 ratings. Weeks 24 and 25 of 2017 saw the top 5 channels of the sports genre with 1,294.254 million impressions and 813.826 million impressions respectively.

    Going by BARC data, international limited overs matches- one day matches as well as T20 matched have been the highest number of Indian audienceeyeballs. Please refer to the figure below for combined weekly impressions of Top 5 channels of the Sports genre during the first 26 weeks of 2017.

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    Week 1 of 2017 saw the lowest CWI during the year until week 26 of 2017 with the top 5 sports channels registering a figure of just 171.251 million. Week 3 of 2017 during which the first and the second ODIs’ were played between India and England in India witnessed the genre garnering the highest CWI for the top 5 channels until week 23 at 811.22 million impressions. CWI of 750.335 was registered in week 5 when T20 matches were played between India and England in India. The CWI of the top 5 Sports channels then petered down until week 10 when the top 5 channels registered a total of 555.647 million impressions. This was during the India Australia second Test Match held in India.  Among the private broadcasters in India, it was Star India’s Sports channels that telecast the India England, the India Australia matches and the Champions Trophy 2017.

    Week 14 of 2017 saw the kick-off of the tenth season of the T20 cricket Indian Premier League (IPL 10 or IPL 2017). The IPL ran until week 21 of 2017. Week 15 of 2017 saw the top 5 channels of the Sports genre registering a total of 691.605 million impressions – the highest combined ratings for the Sports genre during IPL weeks. IPL was aired on Sony Pictures Network (SPN) channels.

     

  • ICC Champions Trophy makes its presence felt Across Genres

    BENGALURU: Indians are cricket crazy – a cliché if ever there was one – but a cliché that makes itself evident every time there is a major cricketing event. And an event such as the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 is sure to attract eyeballs galore.

    Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data for week 23 of 2017 (Saturday, 3 June 2017 to Friday, 9 June 2017) – List of Top 10 Channels Across Genre: All India (U+R): 2+ Individuals revels the entry of three channels that air the Champions Trophy into its fold. Star Sports 1 Hindi at second place, DD National at ninth place and Star Sports 1 at tenth place entered this list, while Sony Max which had aired the T20 IPL season 10 that ended in week 21, exited the top 10 channels across genre list in week 23.

    That the Champions Trophy is responsible for the high ratings of non-sports channel such as DD National is substantiated by the fact that two Champions Trophy matches – the one between India and arch rivals Pakistan and the one between India and its island neighbour Sri Lanka were amongst the top 5 most watched programmes for the Hindi GECand Hindi GEC – Rural and HindiGEC – Urbangenres in week 23 according to BARC data.Even in the case of the Hindi GEC – Urban genre, the Indo-Pak on DD-National match was the fifth most watched programme in week 23 of 2017.

    Besides the channels that aired the Champions Trophy, one Tamil and Telugu GEC each and five Hindi GEC channels were also present in the list of top 10 channels across genres list for week 23.

    As has been the norm, the Sun TV Network’s Tamil flagshipGEC Sun TV headed the list with weekly impressions of 1055.419 million, followed by Star Sports 1 Hindi with weekly impressions 777.806 million. Also from the Star India stable- its Hindi GEC flagship channel Star Plus stood third with 660.801 million impressions followed by Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) Sony Pal with 543.309 million weekly impressions.

    Network 18’s Hindi GEC Rishtey was ranked fifth across genres in week 23 with weekly impressions of 532.853 million followed by the Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) flagship Hindi GEC Zee TV with 522.673 million weekly impressions at sixth rank. Also from the Zeel stable was Hindi GEC Zee Anmol with weekly impressions of 490.769 million at seventh place followed by The Sun TV Networks Teluguflagship channel Gemini TV with 478.453 million impressions at eighth place.

    DD National with 466.696 million weekly impressions stood ninth followed by Star Sports 1 with 462.214 million weekly impressions.

  • Hotstar’s digital campaign reaches out to women audience

    MUMBAI: Hotstar, India’s leading video-on-demand platform, has launched a digital campaign that reaches out to their women audiences and helps break away from the assumption that sports is only viewed by males.

    Sporting events, including Cricket, have always been marked with highly energetic and passionate fans, always perceived to be men. However, these trends are fast changing as women fans celebrate sports with as much enthusiasm and gusto as any other male counterpart. Female fans from across the country are all gearing up for the showdown of the champions at this year’s ICC Champions Trophy 2017. With the advent of OTT platforms like Hotstar, there is a remarkable increase in female viewership of sporting content. Even on social media platforms, women fans are contributing immensely to the overall chatter around the ICC Champions Trophy. Hotstar has been quick to notice an increase in the female viewer consumption of sports content, like the IPL and the India-England cricket series which took place at the start of 2017, and has devised their new campaign that recognizes this trend.

    In their exciting new campaign, Hotstar has partnered with popular female influencers to help spread the word to all their women viewers. With relatable promos from Surbhi Jyoti, Maanvi Gagroo and Mallika Dua, all prominent digital celebrities, the campaign is already connecting well with their female fans.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BU4d5AMFhJ0/?taken-by=mallikadua&hl=en

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BU45n1eAM8K/?taken-by=surbhijyoti&hl=en

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BU3j2JRDjnX/?taken-by=maanvigagroo&hl=en

  • YuppTV pockets ICC Champions’ exclusive digital rights, Canada & Europe to enjoy it live

    MUMBAI: To the delight of cricket enthusiasts on its platform, YuppTV, the world’s largest OTT player in South-Asian content, has bagged the exclusive digital rights for the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy 2017 for Canada and non-exclusive digital rights for Continental Europe. With the latest development, YuppTV users in Canada and Continental Europe, excluding Germany, Switzerland and Austria, will be able to catch the intense cricketing action live on YuppTV.

    YuppTV users can grab all the action, live from 1 – 18, June 2017.

    Commenting on the latest undertaking, Uday Reddy, Founder & CEO, YuppTV, said, “We are glad to bag the Digital Rights for the ICC Champions Trophy, 2017. It has been our constant endeavour to make it easier for users to access entertainment over the internet. Now, with the latest development, cricket enthusiasts will be able to catch the intense cricketing action LIVE on YuppTV. Since cricket enjoys a cult following across the globe, we look forward to receiving a positive response from our customers”

    The ICC Champions Trophy 2017 is going to witness eight top-ranking teams in the world to compete for the top spot. The 18 days long event is going to commence on June 1, promises to an action-packed cricketing extravaganza.

  • Star Sports clicks with its ICC Championship promos

    MUMBAI: How do you better what you did the previous time? That was the question on top of the Star India creative communications’ team’s minds when they were conceiving the new promotional campaign for the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy 2017. The 2015 Mauka Mauka campaign was a runaway hit, spawning thousands of me-too pieces of video clips from users, viralising the idea like a raging bushfire.

    From the brainstorming at the Star Sports network emerged the #championskaWorldCupcamapaign which has seen a clutch of promos including the ‘World Cup wali feeling’,‘Har Koi Dekhega’ and ‘Matrabhasha’ being launched which have been airing across its channels and on digital platforms. And the campaign which has been on for the past two months has got sufficient traction on its YouTube outlets.

    But the latest challenge was how to build further hype around the 4 June Group B match between India and Pakistan at Edbagston in Birmingham in good old Blighty which it will be airing live.

    “The ICC Champions Trophy is the biggest cricket tournament of the year and, with an India-Pakistan match, every cricket fan will tune-in no matter which side they cheer for. The passion, pride and enthusiasm that an India-Pakistan match draws from fans is unmatched around the world,” says a Star Sports spokesperson.

    And that feeling has been encompassed into the one-liner #SabseBadaMoh which has been spun off into a promo. It is a take on the allure, the magnetism and the huge-audience pulling draw that an Indo-Pak conflict between the cherry and the willow on the field has. Every time the two nations go into battle, more than a billion hearts on both sides of the border beat faster, praying that one will best the other.

    The #SabseBadaMoh promo been playing out on the Star India network and on various digital platforms promoting the clash.

    The results have been impressive, say company officials, with more than 30 million users being reached, and viewing of the film crossing 7.5 million times across YouTube and Facebook. The average viewing time on the google owned streaming service: 66 seconds. Shares and engagements on Facebook have also been noteworthy standing at 45,000 and 160,000 respectively. Finally, relevant content around the “MOH” narrative has worked extremely well in delivering more than 1.3 million engagements on Cinema graphs, Graphics relating to trending topics, Carousel ads.

    And while that is celebration time for the Star Sports creative comms team, what is the film about. Let’s take a look:

    It basically showcases how a fan can willingly abandon any materialistic possessions and desires to attain moksh but cannot give up a chance to watch the cricketing action between India and Pakistan.

    Set in scenic Ladakh, the film opens with a monk reading a story in a newspaper about a young businessman giving up his worldly possessions. Soon after, he sees the same man, dressed in a suit, stepping off a helicopter and walking towards the monastery. The film cuts to the man in various facets of his life, parting with his treasured belongings. Even after achieving all the success in the world, something is amiss in his life and he embarks on a quest to attain moksh.

    At the monastery, the man is on the threshold of embracing the life of a monk starting with shaving-off his head, when a gust of wind flips a newspaper with the headline – India vs Pakistan clash at the ICC Champions Trophy on 4 June. Next we see that,the man races out of the monastery, to catch the most-awaited match of the year between India and Pakistan.

    Ending on an emphatic note, the film states – “Yeh moh kabhi nahi chhutega.”

    Industry observers point out that the core message of the promo is tapping into what young India is feeling today. Says one of them: “India is going through a massive reinvention exercise today. Many young Indian people are torn between idealism and living in reality – self realization vs materialism. This has further emerged in the Modi era where anyone can get rich quickly courtesy his government’s policies. So the #sabsebadamoh promo has clearly tapped into this sentiment of spiritualism vs living in the world in a rather lighter vein. Hence, it should continue to appeal to the youth.”

  • Star reignites ‘World Cupwali feeling’

    Star reignites ‘World Cupwali feeling’

    MUMBAI: Star Sports has kicked off its campaign for the ICC Champions Trophy’ 17 with a TVC featuring India’s World Cup’11 winning moment. The tournament, which will see the top eight ICC ranked ODI teams battle it out to become the ultimate champion, promises to be an action-packed affair.

    The film opens with the photo of former Indian captain, MS Dhoni, posing with the ICC World Cup trophy in front of the Gateway of India. The film moves in reverse, starting from the celebrations being done by the fans and the players just after India won the ICC World Cup in 2011, to the most iconic shot of ICC World Cup 2011 – MSD’s winning six in the Final at Wankhede stadium. The film ends with a voiceover along with the shot of current Indian captain, Virat Kohli. The voiceover states that fans will get to experience the same ‘World Cup wali feeling’ as ‘World Cup of Champions’ is about to come.

    The TVC triggers the same feeling of euphoria that the fans experienced when India won the ICC World Cup after a 28-year long wait. The ICC Champions Trophy will be another opportunity for fans to rally behind and cheer for the Indian team which is scaling new heights with every series.

    The creative is based on the idea that for an Indian cricket fan, the feeling of winning the World Cup is unparalleled. The fans last experienced this in the ICC World Cup 2011. ICC Champions Trophy’17, World Cup of Champions, promises to bring back the same feeling in 2017.

    The TVC went on-air on 26 January , 2017 during the TV premiere of MS Dhoni: The Untold Story on Star Plus and during the Ind v Eng T20I on Star Spots. The TVC is digitally available on Star Sports’ social media pages.

    ICC Champions Trophy’17, which will be Virat Kohli’s first major ICC tournament as the captain of Indian team, is scheduled to be held in England and Wales between 1 and 18 June. India, who won the last edition played in 2013, will start their title defense against Pakistan. The much anticipated India vs Pakistan clash is scheduled to be played on 4 June, 2017

  • Star reignites ‘World Cupwali feeling’

    Star reignites ‘World Cupwali feeling’

    MUMBAI: Star Sports has kicked off its campaign for the ICC Champions Trophy’ 17 with a TVC featuring India’s World Cup’11 winning moment. The tournament, which will see the top eight ICC ranked ODI teams battle it out to become the ultimate champion, promises to be an action-packed affair.

    The film opens with the photo of former Indian captain, MS Dhoni, posing with the ICC World Cup trophy in front of the Gateway of India. The film moves in reverse, starting from the celebrations being done by the fans and the players just after India won the ICC World Cup in 2011, to the most iconic shot of ICC World Cup 2011 – MSD’s winning six in the Final at Wankhede stadium. The film ends with a voiceover along with the shot of current Indian captain, Virat Kohli. The voiceover states that fans will get to experience the same ‘World Cup wali feeling’ as ‘World Cup of Champions’ is about to come.

    The TVC triggers the same feeling of euphoria that the fans experienced when India won the ICC World Cup after a 28-year long wait. The ICC Champions Trophy will be another opportunity for fans to rally behind and cheer for the Indian team which is scaling new heights with every series.

    The creative is based on the idea that for an Indian cricket fan, the feeling of winning the World Cup is unparalleled. The fans last experienced this in the ICC World Cup 2011. ICC Champions Trophy’17, World Cup of Champions, promises to bring back the same feeling in 2017.

    The TVC went on-air on 26 January , 2017 during the TV premiere of MS Dhoni: The Untold Story on Star Plus and during the Ind v Eng T20I on Star Spots. The TVC is digitally available on Star Sports’ social media pages.

    ICC Champions Trophy’17, which will be Virat Kohli’s first major ICC tournament as the captain of Indian team, is scheduled to be held in England and Wales between 1 and 18 June. India, who won the last edition played in 2013, will start their title defense against Pakistan. The much anticipated India vs Pakistan clash is scheduled to be played on 4 June, 2017