BBC1’s coverage of the World Cup final last night was watched by an average of 15.5 million people (28.4 TVR); ITV gained an average of 6.6 million (12.1 TVR), according to unofficial overnight viewing figures.
Audiences for France’s 3-0 victory over Brazil peaked at 16.3 million (29.8 TVR) individuals for BBC1, and 7.0 million (12.8 TVR) for ITV.
This represents an audience split of 70:30 in the BBC’s favour. For ITV, however, this is an improvement on the Euro ’96 final viewing, when the Network only managed a 25% share of viewing against the BBC.
The highest viewing figures of the competition came during ITV’s coverage of England v Argentina, in which England were defeated on penalties. During the penalty shoot-out the number of people watching peaked at 26 million (see England’s Epic Defeat Gains 26m Viewers).
These figures do not include out of home viewing, in pubs and clubs for example. Estimates record this out of home audience as adding up to 20% to the official viewing figure.
(TVR – Television Rating: This is a percentage of people watching a programme measured against the number of people who potentially could be watching.)
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