MUMBAI: The 12th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) continues to deliver strong ratings on TV, broadcaster Star India said.As per BARC India data provided by the broadcaster, in the first two weeks, IPL 2019 has clocked an average viewership growth of 21% over last year for first 17 matches, while the reach has gone up by almost 14%.“The first 2 weeks of the tournament had 345 million viewers tuning in from across the country… television viewership delivered 29.8 million average impressions for the first two weeks, registering a growth of 21%,” Star India said.Last year, IPL had registered a total reach of 302.8 million viewers of age above 2 years in the all India market for both urban and rural homes across 10 channels. This year, the matches are being aired across 24 channels this year, which include kids and movie channels on Sundays.BARC defines impressions as the number of individuals of a target audience, averaged across minutes. Reach is total number of individuals who viewed the event for at least one minute.Last year, Star India had witnessed a drop in the reach initially, compared to the 10th season of the IPL. And while this season the viewership numbers are up, last year, for similar number of matches, Star India had suffered a 20% drop in reach in the Hindi speaking markets (HSM).Star said that its strategy of creating customised feeds is paying dividends with growth in viewership across markets this year. “HSM grew by 24% whilst South grew at 15% versus similar period last year. Viewership in the kids segment has grown by 34%, driven by the ‘Super Funday’ feed on Star Gold ,” the company said.Male and female viewership in the 15+ years demographic has gone up by 17% and 21%, respectively, this year.