Women's Cricket World Cup: India vs England final had 19.5 mn impressions

Viewership from rural India was 9.9 mn, marginally more than the urban audience at 9.5 mn

The Women’s World Cup final between India and England grabbed eyeballs in India, raking in 19.53 million impressions during the telecast. It was by far the most-watched match of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Women’s World Cup this year, bringing in viewers from rural and urban India. 

According to data provided by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, the viewership from rural India was 9.9 million impressions, marginally more than the 9.5 million impressions registered in the urban audience. 

Of the seven matches that India played, the final was obviously the most viewed. The semi-final against Australia ranked at number 2, for once out doing an India-Pakistan match, which comes in at number 3 on the most viewed matches featuring India. 

When it came to the reach, however, the India-Pakistan match was sampled by more people than the semi-final. The reach for the India-Pakistan encounter was 9.2 million (viewers) while that for the semi-final was 6.5 million viewers. The final saw a reach of 13.7 million viewers.

The final was also the only match that saw more participation in viewership by the rural market. All other matches, including the India-Pakistan match and the semi-final against the women from Down Under, saw a greater share of urban viewership.

Reach refers to the number of unique viewers who have seen the match for at least one minute. Impressions refer to the number of people watching the match at any given point in the telecast. Thus if a person is returning to the match after a break, he/she is not counted again while calculating reach, but will be considered as a new impression, and hence the number of impressions can be higher than the total number of unique viewers for a match.