Brazil’s brutal beating nets biggest World Cup audience yet
Finally, after four long weeks of hard drinking, rage-venting and generally sitting about on the sofa, Tuesday night saw the nation’s football fans edge closer to the endgame (even if England has long since packed up their boots and industrial-sized supply of hair gel).
Coverage of the very first FIFA World Cup 2014 semi-final got going at 8:30pm on BBC One, with Gary Lineker tasked with warming up a feverish audience with his brand of quality and effortless banter.
An average audience of 5.8 million viewers tuned in for the first half an hour as Lineker and Alan Shearer introduced some jovial clips of intensely excited fans.
The audience jumped up to a massive 12 million viewers in the first fifteen minutes after the 9pm kick off, with the electric game between Germany and Brazil resulting in the audience staying glued to their screens and not falling below that figure for the entire game.
An average audience of 11.5 million viewers (a 51% share) tuned in for the entire two hour 45 minute event which resulted in host team Brazil getting shot out of the tournament in a truly shocking fashion. Germany managed to score their first goal (of seven) 11 minutes in, keeping the action ticking along, viewer interest sky-high and securing their place in the final.
90 heart-breaking minutes later, Brazil finally managed to retaliate with their only goal but it was much too little, far too late.
Peaking right after the second half kicked off (10pm) with 13.8 million viewers (a 58% share), the game actually proved a bigger hit than the previously most-watched game – England’s penultimate game against Italy was watched by 11.5 million on 14th June.
At the same time, ITV was also visiting sunnier climes, tempting viewers away from the big game with a repeat of Benidorm (9pm) from 2012. An audience of 1.4 million viewers tuned in to see the sunny hour of extremely light entertainment, resulting in a 6% share.
Meanwhile, BBC Two provided the complete antidote to the football as historian Dr Pamela Cox was busy wrapping up the third part of her look at the social impact of the female retail assistant in Shopgirls: The True Story of Life Behind the Counter(9pm).
The final episode took viewers into the swinging sixties – after a century of toiling away in Dickensesque conditions, the Shopgirls finally became an icon of glamour in London’s boutiques. The somewhat happy ending was watched by 1.2 million viewers and a 5% share.
Over on Channel 4, the strained reality of Beauty Queen or Bust (9pm) reached snapping point as a fish factory worker and a fast food employee battled it out for the regional heats to win the title of Miss Hull. 551,000 viewers joined in the slightly fabricated fun, netting a 2% share.
Earlier at 8pm, there were finally some happy faces in EastEnders (BBC One) as the downtrodden folk of Walford gathered in the Queen Vic to celebrate Linda Carter’s birthday. 6.2 million viewers watched in unease as the writers attempted some forced jolly moments, with the horror of the Carters clan dragged up as the Spice Girls helping bring in a 30% share.
At the same time Alan Titchmarsh turned on the charm in order to Love Your Garden on ITV at 8pm, bringing in 2.7 million viewers and a 13% share.
On Channel 4, Kirstie Allsopp was once again Phil-less and back with another series of Kirstie’s Fill Your House For Free (unofficially subtitled: Really Helps if You Have Friends in the Industry), which saw the domestic vagabond rummage through giant landfills (figuratively speaking) in order to find the perfect item to upcycle.
Earlier at 7pm, ITV balanced out the evening’s schedule by providing an hour of countryside deviousness in mucky soap Emmerdale (7pm). The sixty minute helping of rural drama saw Andy Sugden’s mangled hand become talk of the village, netting a 31% share, 5.6 million viewers and Tuesday’s third biggest audience.
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