32 mn Indian viewers logged in to WC final

JioCinema, the streaming service owned by Viacom18, said digital viewership crossed TV numbers for the first time for a global marquee sports event. The company claimed 40 billion minutes of watch time was clocked across its TV channel, Sports18, and the streaming platform.

“The tournament became the most-watched global sports event on digital in which India has not participated. This demonstrates the power of digital and the preference viewers and fans,” said Viacom18 Sports’ CEO Anil Jayaraj.

The company said it had about 50 brands across categories like e-commerce, banking, financial services, auto, fashion, hospitality and fintech advertised across television and digital.

The company said, overall, over 110 million viewers consumed their football content on the digital medium, making India one of the highest digital viewership markets for the Fifa World Cup.

According to Fifa’s official figures, in 2018, 3.57 billion viewers – more than half of the global population aged four and over – tuned in to the official broadcast coverage of the entire world cup. The federation had then said that the final between France and Croatia attracted a combined global audience of 1.12 billion, comprising 884.37 million viewers tuning in to TV coverage and a further 231.82 million out-of-home and digital-only viewers.