The TV rights holders of IPL will be telecasting 12 matches of this season on FTV channels in India
The Indian Premier League season 16th is set to unfold from the 31st March 2023 with defending champions Gujarat Titans taking on four-time winners Chennai Super Kings at Ahmedabad. However, even before the start of the tournament, the broadcasting rights holders, Disney Star, have made a benefiting announcement for fans.
In India, for the first time in its history, the 16th season of the Indian Premier League will be broadcast on free-to-view channels such as Star Utsav. Although only 12 matches will be available on the free-to-view channels, rural areas are expected to see a big increase in TRPs.
The company said, “This year, for the first time, Star Sports will take 12 IPL games on FTA via its Star Utsav Movies channel.”
One senior official from the network also revealed, “In taking select IPL games to FTA, we aim to give an unserved audience cohort the opportunity to sample the top-quality content proposition that Star Sports presently makes available only to its Pay TV subscribers. As income and aspiration levels grow among these FTA viewers, Disney Star expects that many of them, based on their viewing experience of this content, will transition to Pay TV, helping this universe grow further from its current base of 168 million connections (BARC Data).”
Disney Star and Viacom18 have become arch-rivals on the cricket broadcasting scene lately
This decision has come with an eye to lure the rural audience of India, which has always been deprived of the biggest carnival of cricket. This decision indicates, however, that Disney Star is hoping to fend off competition from their archrivals Viacom18, which is the digital rights holder of the tournament and will stream IPL matches free of charge.
Disney Star TV rights deal with BCCI is worth $3.02 billion for the 2023 to 2027 cycle while the digital streaming rights with Viacom18 stands at a staggering $3.05 billion. Both companies have become archrivals and these antics certainly indicate a race to attract audiences to their platforms. Viacom18 and Disney Star are again likely to compete for upcoming BCCI rights which is the biggest media rights deal in cricket.
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