Mumbai: In their first-ever Olympics broadcast, Viacom18’s Paris 2024 coverage became the most comprehensive Olympic presentation yet in India, delivering the highest-ever viewership for the Olympics in India across linear and digital platforms. Over 17 crore viewers came to JioCinema and Sports18 Network amassing an unprecedented watch-time of over 1500 crore minutes as more people watched Olympics content for longer than ever before in India.
For the first time, Olympics coverage in India was presented across 20 concurrent feeds, on JioCinema for free, as fans watched their preferred action and Indian performances anytime, anywhere on their preferred device making it the most-watched Olympics ever. The 17 sports-wise feeds and three curated feeds, all available in 4K gave viewers the ability to track the finest athletes in the world in action at Paris 2024.
On linear platforms, Sports18 – 1, Sports18 – 1 HD, Sports18 – 2 ran India-focused feed, Global Action was available on Sports18 – 3. Sports18 – 1 and Sports18 – 1 HD presented the Games in English with Tamil and Telugu available on the language button. Sports18 – 2 offered Paris 2024 in Hindi.
“Paris 2024 is a prime example of how non-cricket sporting action is continuing to grow in adoption amongst Indian audiences. Both the viewership scale and the enthusiastic advertiser participation bear testimony to that. Our Olympic coverage was not just a world-class production, it allowed viewers to watch the action with studio experts (former Olympians), with commentary in local languages, along with compelling storytelling, and fascinating live & non-live coverage of every event across two weeks,” said Viacom18 – digital CEO Kiran Mani. “Our endeavour is to constantly enhance the sports viewing experience, engaging sports fans across all screens and for longer, while giving advertisers the avenues and opportunities to reach their consumers most effectively.”
The innovations in the digital viewing experience for Paris 2024 democratised access to the pinnacle of sports in an unprecedented way. Viacom18 presented the Olympics in four languages with an expert panel of former Olympians like never before, along with the biggest ever on-ground coverage of the event by an Indian broadcaster with a crew of 20+ people and ground presence across six venues. To top it up, presenting the Games with educative and exciting commentary and content that captured all the emotion and effort attached to each sport expanded user interest.
The immersive coverage tipped off with a dedicated camera feed on the India float throughout the Opening Ceremony giving viewers a ring-side view of the Indian contingent. In addition, viewers enjoyed coverage of India’s glorious moments with live interviews alongside a domain expert from the studio. The opening ceremony was made available across Sports18 Network, Colors Network, VH1 and MTV besides being free on JioCinema.
For advertisers, the expansive presentation presented an unparalleled opportunity to engage with a highly passionate and diverse audience. As many as 69 brands, most to date in the history of Olympics broadcasting in India, saw the value in associating with the quadrennial spectacle leading to advertising revenue increasing 2.6x over the previous edition. The Viacom18 presentation’s co-presenting partners were Reliance Foundation, SBI, and JSW. Coca Cola India Ltd, Herbalife were associate partners while other top advertisers included RBI, AMFI, Aditya Birla Capital, Air India, Bacardi Martini India Ltd, MRF among others.
The Paris 2024 presentation offered innovative ad assets like Split Screen ads, four-sided Squeeze Backs, contextual assets like Super Start, Winning Moment, Super Saves and Branded Tabs on Medal Tally, and Schedule, coupled with brand presence during key India moments which helped the advertisers to establish an associative value with the event.
