WC shatters audience records

DUBAI: The International Cricket Council on Friday released TV and digital viewing figures for the ICC World Cup group stage and semi-finals, setting new TV and digital records and becoming one of the world’s most watched sporting events, says a press release.

Across ICC’s digital and social platforms during the group stage, there have also been an unprecedented 2.6 billion video views.

Meanwhile, the official tournament social channels have added 12 million new followers in the space of six weeks and attracted 386 million engagements, with fans.

In addition, the official World Cup website (www.cricketworldcup.com) has been visited by 65 million unique users worldwide and has had more than 250 million page views.

The semi-final between India and New Zealand set a new world record by delivering the highest ever concurrent views on Hotstar with a peak of 25.3 million. The previous record was at 18.6 million.

In the UK, the event has now reached a unique audience of 20 million people through Sky Sports’ live coverage and highlights on Channel 4. The semi-final between England and Australia became the third most watched match for the event on Sky Sports after England v India and India v Pakistan, attracting 465,000 new audience through live and highlights coverage.

Through ICC’s Global Broadcast Partner, Star Sports, and ICC’s Broadcast Partners the event has been televised into over 220 territories on 46 separate TV channels and the group stages were watched by more than 675 million unique viewers.

Continuing the TV viewership records, England’s win over India at Edgbaston was the most watched cricket match within the United Kingdom across any format, since 2006. This match saw a unique audience of 3.45m on Sky Sports, with the audience peaking at 1.8m during India’s second innings run chase.

In India, the India v Pakistan match delivered a rating of 14.8 across both Star and DD while the India v England match delivered 18 million peak concurrent views on Hotstar.

While in South Africa, viewership is tracking 250 per cent higher than the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 with the most watched match in the Group Stage, South Africa v Bangladesh. This match saw an average audience of 1.13m tune in, as South Africa fought to chase Bangladesh’s first innings score of 330.