Mumbai: While Star Sports Network maintains its stronghold with a huge 47 per cent growth in comparison to last year, digital rights owner Viacom has gone all in on providing an improved viewing experience to the fans.

A new era in sports broadcasting began through the 16 edition of the Indian Premier League with two separate platforms telecasting the most popular cricket league in the world. While Star Sports Network continues to cater to the television audience, JioCinema, after snatching away the digital rights from Star Sports Network’s Disney+Hotstar, is providing free streaming service to the fans on the OTT app. Both networks have seen encouraging numbers in the initial stages of IPL 2023.

While Star Sports Network maintains its stronghold with a huge 47 per cent growth in comparison to last year, digital rights owner Viacom has gone all in on providing an improved viewing experience to the fans.

IPL chairman Arun Dhumal says that despite the relevance of television in the country, digital medium has an appeal to it.

“The game has to innovate for everyone. Everything about the game has to revolve around the fans. The idea was to make it more enriching for the fans. We had a different set of auctions (for media rights), we have two amazing partners.

“A lot of markets need to be captured as far as the global audience is concerned. We will reach out to the fans globally,” said Dhumal.

Considering the digital revolution taking place in India and around the world, will TV remain relevant?

“Digital is changing the landscape so there will be more takers for digital but given the depth and reach of the television it still has a great market in India,” he added.