iWorld
Hotstar and Akamai create internet history
MUMBAI: Hotstar, India’s leading premium streaming platform, leveraged Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the world’s most trusted and largest cloud delivery platform, to create streaming history on 22 May 2018 during the first qualifier match of VIVO IPL 2018. The match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings attracted an unprecedented 8.26 million peak concurrent viewers tuning in simultaneously to witness the nail-biting finish, thereby breaking all previous records in online video streaming across the world. Over four hours, more than 26 million viewers tuned into Hotstar to watch the match.
The previous record is believed to have been established by YouTube when Felix Baumgartner’s space jump in 2012 saw a peak of just over 8 million concurrent viewers tuning in to watch the event.
Hotstar’s steady march into the record books started in 2017, when it recorded a peak concurrency of 4.8 million simultaneous viewers during the India-Pakistan ICC Champions’ Trophy final match, the highest in APAC at the time. The opening week of Vivo IPL 2018 upended this record with 5.5 million concurrency recorded on 10 April, followed by the next peak of 7.1 million on 25 April. The peak seen during the ICC Champion’s Trophy Final was nearly doubled during the VIVO IPL 2018 match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings. With all sports streaming records broken, the next frontier was to go beyond just sports and raise the bar on streaming as a whole.
Commenting on the historic development, Hotstar, CEO, Ajit Mohan added, “Four years ago, when we started streaming IPL, 8 million viewers would have been a big deal for the whole tournament. Crossing 8 million simultaneous users is a testimony to the power of VIVO IPL and evidence of the abiding passion of cricket fans. It is not just about the scale, however. It is about reinventing the sports experience online and constantly raising the bar. Our objective is to create the future of social TV. And we are proud that the tech that we are building is expanding the frontiers of online video.”
Akamai Technologies, Vice President, Media, APJ, Parimal Pandya commented, “Over the past year and a half, Hotstar has broken several online viewing records at the regional level. A contributing factor was technology from Akamai playing a role in bringing down the latency drastically so users can enjoy the live action almost as well as people watching it on their television. This is a clear indicator of the fact that, driven by technology from Akamai, live sporting action can be enjoyed on a smartphone which is the new frontier for audience engagement and growth.”
VIVO IPL 2018, now in its final week, to be concluded on Sunday 27 May 2018, is the fifth year that Hotstar is streaming the tournament. The current edition of the tournament marks a sharp upgrade in viewing experience, with additions like WatchN’Play, a skill based game that tests the cricket fans’ knowledge as they watch, VR to really immerse the viewer in the on-field action, and feeds available in 8 languages.
iWorld
TAM Sports expands monitoring to live streaming on CTV and mobile
New cross-platform framework tracks brand visibility across broadcast and streaming feeds
MUMBAI: TAM Sports, the sports intelligence arm of TAM Media Research, is widening its monitoring net. The company has expanded its advertising tracking to include live streaming across connected TV (CTV) and mobile platforms alongside traditional linear live broadcasts, sharpening its ability to measure brand presence in the fast-evolving sports media landscape.
The move comes as sports viewership increasingly splinters across multiple screens and streaming environments, pushing advertisers, sponsors and rights holders to seek credible data on how their brands perform across platforms.
For more than 15 years, TAM Sports has provided independent monitoring of sponsorship exposure for federations, leagues, teams, sponsors and agencies. By adding live streaming feeds on CTV and mobile to its analytics stack, the firm now enables stakeholders to track advertising occurrences and brand appearances across streaming environments as well as conventional television coverage.
LV Krishnan, chief executive officer, TAM Media Research, said media consumption around sports has transformed rapidly, and measurement systems must keep pace.
“Media consumption around sports has evolved rapidly, and measurement frameworks must evolve with it,” Krishnan said. “For more than a decade and a half, TAM Sports has continuously adapted to industry needs by providing credible, independent insights across platforms. This commitment is why federations, agencies and sponsors continue to rely on us as a trusted partner.”
Anshu Yardi, head, TAM Sports, said the increasingly fragmented video ecosystem has made unified analytics essential for stakeholders trying to assess the true impact of sponsorship investments.
“In today’s fragmented video environment, sponsors, agencies and franchisees need a clear understanding of how their brand communication performs across screens,” Yardi said. “TAM Sports brings together cross-platform monitoring and analytics that help stakeholders track brand visibility, benchmark competitive presence and demonstrate measurable ROI from sports partnerships.”
The platform evaluates brand exposure across several dimensions. These include advertising occurrences during live coverage, in-content brand integrations, stadium branding visibility, audio mentions, editorial logo placements in print, and presence across digital and social media. Clients can also combine the data with brand-lift studies to assess the depth and prominence of sponsorship exposure.
By consolidating these monitoring and analytics capabilities within a single platform, TAM Sports aims to give rights holders and sponsors a clearer view of how their investments perform across broadcast, streaming, digital and on-ground environments.
The company says the expanded system allows stakeholders to gauge competitive share of voice and sponsorship visibility across the broader sports media ecosystem.
In a world where fans switch effortlessly between television, phones and connected screens, the message from TAM Sports is blunt: follow the audience everywhere—or risk losing sight of the brand game altogether.
