ITV Wins FA Cup Final Ratings Battle
More people than last year chose to watch last Saturday’s Arsenal/Liverpool FA Cup final on ITV rather than Sky Sports 2.
ITV’s coverage drew 7.8m viewers at its peak. An average of 6.8 million watched throughout the game compared to an average of 840,000 viewers watching on Sky Sports 2.
ITV’s controller of sport Brian Barwick said: “It might have been the closest final in recent years on the pitch but on the television it was a 6-1 win to ITV over Sky Sports 2.”
Viewing figures show that ITV’s coverage exceeded that of Sky Sports 2 by a ratio of eight to one and when compared to Sky Sports Extra by more than 20 to 1.
According to Barwick: “In multi channel homes more than twice as many people decided to watch ITV than a dedicated sports channel and ITV significantly increased its audience in these homes. Overall it was a convincing victory for us.”
ITV’s audience figures increased this year by half a million compared to Skysports 2 where the audience dropped by 29,000.