What SYNC Pulse reveals about IPL, OTT, linear TV, and the future of cross-media measurement in India.
IPL 2026 created approximately 12 million new ad-addressable viewers across India's top six metros, according to SYNC Pulse panel data. Of these, 7.2 million came through OTT and 4.8 million returned to linear TV. OTT audiences grew 47%, linear TV audiences grew 34%, and cross-platform duplication stayed below 11%.
Every year, the IPL conversation starts with the same question: how many people watched? It is the obvious question. But for advertisers, it is not the most useful one. The more important question is this: how many people entered the ad-addressable media ecosystem because of IPL? That distinction matters.
If a viewer simply moves from one TV channel to another, a brand is competing for existing attention. But if a viewer who was inactive on TV or OTT suddenly starts watching because of IPL, the brand is accessing an audience that may not have been reachable through regular media planning. That is what we measured through SYNC Pulse, SYNCMEDIA's single-source cross-media measurement panel.
SYNC Pulse tracks individual-level exposure across linear TV and OTT, and connects those exposures to downstream actions such as search, app engagement, site visits, and e-commerce behaviour. In simple terms, it helps us understand not only who was exposed to advertising, but what they did after that exposure.
For this analysis, we compared viewing behaviour in the 7–11 PM primetime window across two periods: the 30 days before IPL 2026 and the active IPL match period. Same panel. Same metros. Same households. Same measurement logic. The result was clear. IPL 2026 did not just grow audiences. It created 12 million new ones across India's top six metros.
IPL lifted both linear TV and OTT audiences
During IPL primetime, linear TV audiences rose 34% over the pre-IPL baseline. OTT audiences on JioHotstar rose 47%. The combined, unduplicated cross-platform audience grew 41%.
Audience growth during IPL is expected. What stood out was the source of that growth. A large share of viewers were not simply switching from entertainment, news, or other sports programming. They had not been active in the measured ad-supported media environment at all.
Among IPL viewers on linear TV, 23% had not watched any television in the preceding 30 days. On OTT, the number was even higher. 31% of IPL viewers on JioHotstar were either first-time users or had been inactive for more than a month.
Scaled to the SYNC Pulse panel universe, this translates to approximately 12 million adults across Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata who entered the ad-supported media ecosystem specifically because of IPL. Of these:
- 7.2 million came through OTT — cord-cutters, first-time streamers, and lapsed users pulled into ad-supported viewing by live cricket.
- 4.8 million returned to linear TV — lapsed television viewers who had not turned on a TV set in more than a month.
These are not people who changed channels. These are people who switched on.
Premium India showed the biggest OTT movement
The size of the new audience is important. But the composition of that audience is even more important. Among NCCS A and B audiences — India's premium spending cohort — OTT audience lift during IPL was 52%. That was nearly double the 28% lift recorded on linear TV for the same segment.
This matters because premium consumers are becoming harder to reach through regular ad-supported media. Many spend less time with scheduled linear TV. Many subscribe to ad-free streaming environments. Many are fragmented across platforms and devices. IPL changes that behaviour.
During IPL, 18% of premium-tier OTT subscribers in the SYNC Pulse panel watched matches on ad-supported streams. In other words, live cricket created a moment where even ad-avoidant premium consumers voluntarily entered an ad-supported environment.
Across all new-to-platform viewers, 68% fell in NCCS A and B. That is a critical finding for advertisers. IPL's audience-creation effect does not merely scale mass viewership. It also brings premium consumers back into measurable, ad-supported media environments.
Younger viewers were created on streaming
The age split reinforces the same pattern. Among 18–24-year-olds, OTT audience lift was 68%, the highest of any cohort. Linear TV lift for the same group was only 18%. That tells us something important about Gen Z media behaviour. Younger viewers do not naturally exist at scale on linear television. For advertisers trying to reach them in an ad-supported environment, IPL on streaming is one of the few properties that can still aggregate them at meaningful scale.
Among 25–34-year-olds, OTT lift was 54%, while linear TV lift was 31%. This group showed the strongest cross-screen behaviour, with viewers likely to encounter the same brand across Star Sports and JioHotstar during the same match window.
Among older viewers, linear TV remained more dominant. So the IPL audience is not one audience. It is multiple audiences, activated differently by screen. For younger viewers, IPL is streaming-led. For older viewers, it remains television-led. For families, it is a shared cross-screen event. For advertisers, it has to be measured as one deduplicated audience system.
IPL attention is different from regular primetime
Large audiences are common in Indian media. Concentrated audiences are rare. That is what makes IPL structurally different. SYNC Pulse observed three important signals during the IPL period.
First, IPL created 34 million peak concurrent viewers across platforms. This is not just a larger primetime audience. It is a different density of attention.
Second, 90% of IPL viewers used a second screen during live matches. That means viewers were watching in a context where the phone was already in hand. The distance between ad exposure and action — search, app open, product discovery, or commerce behaviour — was much shorter.
Third, cross-platform ad duplication was less than 5% across connected TV, linear TV, and mobile. That last point is especially important. It means the audiences on each screen were largely distinct. Brands buying across platforms were not simply paying twice for the same viewer. They were adding genuine incremental reach. In SYNC Pulse data, cross-screen IPL buying added 20–40% incremental unduplicated reach. That is the difference between buying more impressions and reaching more people.
Why this changes the IPL value story
The industry has traditionally valued IPL for reach. That is still valid. But the sharper value is audience creation. A standard platform report can tell an advertiser how many impressions were served or how many viewers were reached on a particular screen. But that does not answer the more strategic questions: Were these viewers already reachable elsewhere? Were they duplicated across TV and OTT? Which platform added new people? Which audience segments were activated only because of IPL? And what did those people do after seeing the advertising?
That is where single-source cross-media measurement becomes essential. Without deduplication, advertisers risk overestimating reach. With deduplication, they can see the real contribution of every screen: linear TV, connected TV, mobile OTT, and digital.
IPL is one of the clearest examples of why this matters. It does not behave like regular primetime. It creates temporary but highly valuable audience pools: younger viewers, premium OTT viewers, lapsed TV viewers, and second-screen active households. For advertisers, that is not just media exposure. That is measurable opportunity.
From reach to outcomes
Audience creation is the first layer. The next question is whether these newly addressable audiences convert into business outcomes. That is what SYNCMEDIA's Cross-Media Outcome Index, or CMOI, is designed to measure. CMOI connects individual-level ad exposure across TV and streaming to downstream behaviour such as branded search lift, app engagement, site visits, and add-to-cart actions. It is calculated by advertiser category, platform, and exposure type.
That matters because not every category responds to media in the same way. A food delivery app, a fintech brand, a smartphone, and an FMCG product will all produce different post-exposure behaviours. A single reach number cannot explain that difference. A cross-media outcome index can.
The bottom line
Twelve million adults across India's top six metros were not in any advertiser's active addressable universe before IPL 2026 started. During the tournament, they showed up. They skewed premium. They skewed young. They were active on OTT. They had second screens in hand. And duplication across platforms was low. The industry has always known that IPL delivers reach. What SYNC Pulse shows is more precise: IPL creates audiences that do not exist at comparable scale outside live cricket. That is not just a reach story. That is an audience-creation story. And it is measurable now.
Want to understand how your IPL campaign performed across TV, OTT, and outcomes? Get in touch with SYNCMEDIA to see how single-source cross-media measurement can inform your next tentpole campaign.