Germany’s World Cup conquest peaks at 20m across BBC & ITV
Sunday night saw enthused football fans reach a frenzy of global proportions with all eyes on the Estadio do Maracana in Rio de Janeiro, as – at long last – the FIFA World Cup 2014 (7pm) tournament finally came to an end.
Fans might be forgiven for thinking they had tuned in to see Germany take on Argentina, but the real contest was between the BBC and commercial broadcaster ITV, who – after sharing the hectic coverage for one whole month – finally went head to head in a fierce and bloody simulcast for viewer domination.
Naturally, ad-free broadcaster BBC One attracted the vast majority of spectators, with a whopping 81% of viewers choosing to watch Germany finally wrestle Argentina into submission on the corporation’s flagship channel.
A little over 12 million viewers tuned in to watch all the coverage on BBC One, home of Gary Lineker’s face and his roster of expert pundit friends. An even 50% share watched all of the coverage on offer, peaking to a massive 59% (16 million viewers) at 10pm.
The 19% who did watch with ITV, unable to resist the overwhelming allure of Adrian Chiles, translated to an average audience of 2.8 million viewers and a 12% share, with – shockingly – just 589,000 of those watching on shiny ITV HD.
In the spirit of global togetherness that was the World Cup competition, the final game highlighted a shared success for both channels that has been reflected over the past four weeks. In total, an average audience of 15 million viewers tuned in for the entire coverage of the grand finale across both channels, reaching a shared audience share of 62%.
The combined audience peak saw viewers hit a staggering 20 million viewers at 10pm, right in the thick of the extra time that resulted in Germany’s 1-0 victory, proving a rousing success for all those involved, no matter their commercial leanings.
Nearly just as important was yesterday’s trip to the collective rural idyll of Countryfile (BBC One, 6pm) as Tom Heap was arm-deep in the debate of selective breeding.
Sure, the countryside may be littered with giant cows and robust egg-firing chickens but the show’s more ‘intellectual’ presenter, Tom, was concerned with the consequences and welfare of playing God.
Meanwhile, Matt Baker (who represents the show’s ‘eye candy’) was staring intensely at and musing about sand dunes, which no doubt helped to bring in the day’s second biggest audience. Coming in right behind the BBC’s World Cup coverage, an audience of 4.5 million and a 50% share tuned in for the wholesome fun.
Bravely offering up a feeble alternative to the blanket tournament coverage was Channel 4, which declared that James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster Titanic was now officially the antithesis of football.
At total audience of 831,000 watched Kate getting her bits out and Leo dying, in that order, resulting in a 3% share.
At the same time, BBC Two offered up another celluloid classic the form of charisma-vacuum and Richard Gere/Jennifer Lopez vehicle, Shall We Dance (7:20pm). The unmemorable rom com from 2004 saw the mismatched pair team up to dance, or something, and was avoided by all right-thinking humans.
Yesterday’s rare chance to relive all the magic brought in BBC Two’s biggest audience of the day with 1.3 million viewers and a 5% share.
Following that at 9pm was a repeat of the adoption of Sarah Water’s novel, The Night Watch (BBC Two). The tale of hidden love set to the backdrop of World War II was watched by 868,000 viewers and a 3% share.
Channel 5’s Sunday arsenal came in the form of a sensitive and well balanced documentary called The Boy They Call Fish, because ‘they’ aren’t very nice apparently. The tale of the Vietnamese boy with super funky skin was watched by 385,000 viewers, while Big Brother pulled in 800,000 viewers at 9pm.
The Social TV Analytics report is a daily leaderboard displaying the latest social TV analytics Twitter data from SecondSync. The table shows the top UK TV shows as they are mentioned on Twitter, which MediaTel has correlated with the BARB overnight programme ratings for those shows (only viewable to BARB subscribers).
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations. Overnight data supplied by TRP are based on 15 minute slot averages. This may differ from tape checked figures, which are based on a programme’s actual start and end time.
To get all the latest MediaTel Newsline updates follow us on Twitter.