England bows out of World Cup with lowest audience yet
Tuesday night saw the UK’s football-mad population gather around their TVs in the vain hope that Roy Hodgson’s England team would bow out of the FIFA World Cup 2014 tournament in a heroic blaze of glory.
Unfortunately for the country’s general morale, this was not to be.
ITV’s coverage of the agonisingly bitter-sweet match got under way at 4pm as charisma black hole Adrian Chiles was joined by former England manager Glenn Hoddle, with Ian Wright returning to Brazil just in time to catch the England team’s swansong.
Despite the inevitably dour outcome, the game against Costa Rica saw the more patriotic types cheer England on to the unavoidable and disappointing conclusion, regardless – although the national spirit was a far cry from the glory days of past FIFA World Cup 2014 defeats.
Cast your mind back all the way to ten days ago and BBC One was celebrating a victory to the tune of a 76% share as a peak of 15.4 million viewers tuned in for England’s Saturday night defeat against Italy. Then on June 19th, another massive audience of 13 million viewers witnessed Uruguay defeat England in a 2-1 victory.
Yesterday’s earlier start didn’t find the TV viewers in such a loyal disposition with only an average audience of 5.7 million viewers tuning in for a painfully uneventful 0-0 draw, representing a 39% share for ITV.
Although it didn’t quite reach the peaks of England’s first defeat, the team’s final game did bring in the day’s biggest average audience. Interest peaked 15 minutes before the final whistle at 6:30pm with 9.1 million viewers and a 47% share tuning in for the fifteen minute window.
At the same time, ITV 4 offered up a much bitier match between Italy and Uruguay at 4pm. An average audience of 686,000 tuned in for the whole shebang, with the audience’s peaking at 2.3 million viewers in the final minutes as news of Uruguayan Luis Suárez’s nashing action spread.
Throughout the day both BBC channels offered blanket coverage of Wimbledon 2014, with Sue Barker being forced to be the face of both channels throughout the day. The four hour 15 minute coverage on BBC One from 1:45pm brought in 969,000 viewers while BBC Two’s eight and a half hour show from 11:30am secured 655,000 viewers (a 6% share).
Later on in the night, football took over BBC One’s evening schedule at 8pm with the clash between Greece and Ivory Coast. An average audience of 4 million viewers (a 21% share) watched all the coverage, peaking to 4.7 million viewers at 10:45pm.
Outside of the realm of sporting fun, EastEnders solely carried the dramatic flag on BBC One at 7:30pm. The latest visit to Walford resulted in the day’s second biggest hit, with 5.6 million viewers tuning in to see the Carter family attempt a brief moment of happiness at the opening of Dean’s salon, translating to a 29% share.
Later at 9pm, BBC Two gave us the first instalment of Shopgirls: The True Story of Life Behind the Counter, one of those documentaries that’s pretty much summed up perfectly in the title. 1.5 million viewers tuned in to see what’s it’s really like behind the counter (empowering, apparently) with the pleasant look at social history locking in a 7% share.
Over on ITV, the broadcaster was getting back in the habit of sending some random familiar faces to random locations around the country in order to fill up some of the schedule.
Alison Steadman’s Shetland (9pm) saw the actress arrive at the Shetland Islands and react to every little thing with great enthusiasm. 1.8 million viewers and an 8% share joined in on the promotional fun.
Meanwhile, over on Channel 4, ‘structured’ factual series, The Auction House (9pm), continued to leapfrog over the recent Posh Pawn in terms of general exaggerated reality. 1.7 million viewers tuned in to see the spoils of Chelsea’s super rich residents being flogged off to the masses, resulting in an 8% share.
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