Overall World Cup viewing increases sharply in UK

The 2006 version of the World Cup 2006 has seen United Kingdom TV audiences boosted by 40 percent over the 2002 version.

This audience growth, as described in a paper by Kevin Alavy, senior analyst at Initiative Futures, has been driven by the World Cup being held in Germany this year, as opposed to the 2002 tournament, staged in Japan and Korea.

That has led to more convenient scheduling with games in the afternoon or evening. Most matches four years ago were broadcast in the morning.

The most watched match so far England’s 2-0 defeat of Trinidad & Tobago, drawing an average programme audience of 11.3 million. It was the most watched TV sporting event of the year, beating Barcelona against Arsenal in the Champions League final. An average audience of 10.5 million people watched that on ITV1 and Sky Sports 1.

However, while average UK audiences across the first 20 matches are significantly higher than four years ago, the number of in-home viewers for England's matches has fallen compared with 2002.

England's first match in 2002, a draw with Sweden, was watched by 12.6 million. That was 43 percent more people than the 8.8 million who watched England's 1-0 victory over Paraguay in their first match of 2006.

England's second match in 2002, a 1-0 victory over Argentina, also was watched by more people than the Trinidad & Tobago match. The Argentina match audience was 11.9 million, 5 percent more than the total who watched England face Trinidad & Tobago.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.