The Indian Premier League "continued to attract viewers, especially on the digital platform," with Star India's video streaming platform Hotstar registering a reach figure of 100 million across web and mobile, according to Urvi Malvania of the Indian BUSINESS STANDARD. According to data provided by the platform, IPL's reach "increased from 41 million in 2015 to 100 million this year." Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan said, "During the tournament, we came across some interesting insights on the audience profile that Hotstar attracts. For one, the majority of the viewers are in the young affluent (male and female viewers above 15 years of age belonging to the upper socio-economic demographic in the metros). What we also found out is that for most of these viewers, consumption of the tournament took place almost exclusively on Hotstar." In terms of the gender slice, consumption "was dominated by male viewers" at 78% of the total reach (BUSINESS STANDARD, 6/6). The TELEVISION POST reported Hotstar said that the "dramatic growth in viewership was driven by a surge in the number of cricket fans from the top metros and cities, where access to mobile broadband on Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G had seen a surge over the last two years." The platform "also saw a surge in fan engagement on social media with overall interactions exploding from 228 million in 2014 when streaming debuted on starsports.com to more than 4.5 billion this year on Hotstar" (TELEVISION POST, 6/6).
