MUMBAI: The recently concluded Asia Cup delivered the highest ratings of the season amongst the other sports with the Indian-Pakistan match taking the cake.

With approximately 26.6 crore viewers at an all India level excluding the finale, the India-Pak match was also viewed as the top programme across genres, according to the data recorded by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC).

BARC’s viewership measurement showed that viewing of cricket consistently dwarfed viewership of all other forms of programming, including general entertainment, since April last year.

According to the survey, the format of T20 on Star Sports from the past eight weeks attracted the majority of eyeballs. With the advent of multiple screens, Hotstar has now emerged as a significant source of viewership and is also becoming the primary screen for an increasing number of consumers in metropolitan India.

The Asia Cup Indo-Pak match was the highest watched T20 match ever on Hotstar with engagement levels for Asia Cup matches being 1.5 times higher than even the 2015 IPL.

According to the Council, the viewership amongst affluent males in urban India for matches when India played one-day international or T20 games is significantly higher than the lead entertainment channel’s share on those cricket days.

Highlighting cricket’s share of television audience in rural India, the viewership was even greater among the same demographic group, more than twice the share of eyeballs garnered by the lead entertainment channel on those days.

This trend highlights cricket’s undiminished appeal to consumers and is a testament to efforts aimed at establishing new broadcast benchmarks with a view to delivering a significantly enhanced and more immersive viewing experience for fans across the country.