Television remains the favoured mode of consumption for Indian Premier League (IPL) viewers with 33% tuning in solely on TV, while OTT saw a decrease in viewership, a report from Hansa Research showed Thursday.

However, fans prefer remaining hooked to the 16th edition of the cricket tournament, as dual viewership (combination of OTT & TV) remained the most popular choice with 57% of viewers opting for it, data from Hansa Research’s IPLomania 2023 study showed.

Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, and Royal Challengers Bangalore emerged as the most favoured teams in IPL 2023.

Furthermore, MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were rated ‘top players’, as per the report. Forty per cent of the audience are driven by their favourite player for supporting the team, the study showed.

As per the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) data shared by Disney Star, the first 29 matches of the IPL’s TV coverage garnered an unprecedented 40.9 crore viewers. This, it said, was the highest ever in the league’s history.

The BCCI has given the TV and digital broadcasting rights of this Tata IPL season 2023 to different companies.Viacom18’s JioCinema has been streaming IPL matches for free of cost, even though it burns Internet data while India has still large areas without high-speed data connectivity and low smartphone penetration.The IPLomania 2023 study showed that OTT viewership has decreased from 16% to 10% in 2023.

Viacom18, a part of Mukesh Ambani-owned Network18, won digital streaming rights from 2023 to 2027, for Rs 23,758 crore ($2.89 billion), which Disney Star previously held.

On the advertising front, player jerseys captured maximum eyeballs, with a 64% recall among IPL fans, it said.

“This indicates the immense branding potential of in-stadia properties in making a lasting impression on the audience. Moreover, the IPLomania 2023 study showed an improvement in the brand recall of key sponsors compared to last year, emphasizing the growing effectiveness of sponsorships in IPL,” the company said.