Sunday’s World Cup audience stagnates, Fargo ends with 1.1m
The past weekend provided slim pickings for TV viewers averse to football, with the FIFA World Cup 2014 dominating Saturday’s schedule, but even this year’s most hyped sporting event struggled to keep people out of the glorious summer sunshine.
ITV’s coverage got under way at 4:00pm as Argentina tackled the might of Iran on the pitch, with the calm, reassuring and slightly detached Adrian Chiles on presenting duties. An average audience of 3.2 million viewers watched the entire three hour coverage, resulting in a 28% share.
As usual, the audience peaked in the closing moments of the game, with 3.9 million viewers witnessing Argentina’s 1-0 victory at 6:30pm.
But it was BBC One’s handling of the Germany v Ghana match later on in the afternoon that provided Saturday’s biggest audience of the day. Crisps advertising enthusiast Gary Lineker kicked off the professional-level chit chat at 7:30pm, with the game from Estádio Castelão getting under way at 8pm.
An average audience of 5.8 million viewers tuned in for the clash, which led to a 2-2 draw and a 34% audience share. The crucial final moments of the game saw the audience soar to 7.7 million viewers and a whopping 39% share.
There was little on offer to keep the nation glued to their screens outside of the grand tournament, with BBC News at 10pm on BBC One securing the day’s second biggest audience. Earlier in the day A Question of Sport: Super Saturday (BBC One, 6:45pm) was watched by 2.6 million viewers.
At 9pm Channel 4 provided some much-needed alternative stadium-based entertainment as 24 young adults fought to the death in the surprisingly atmospheric but non-violent The Hunger Games (9pm).
A little over 2 million viewers watched the film that launched Jennifer Lawrence into the stratosphere (again), netting a 13% share for the channel.
Unfortunately, exhausted viewers of Sunday’s schedule didn’t treat the World Cup with as much enthusiasm, with yesterday’s games only managing to secure the day’s the eighth and ninth places in Sunday’s rankings.
Signposting this perfectly was the thrilling fact that Regional News and Weather (BBC One, 7:15pm) was the day’s most popular show, with a audience of 5.1 million viewers and (a 30% share) sending it to the top.
In third and second places were the dependable – and very BBC – double whammy of Countryfile (7:30pm) and Antiques Roadshow (8:15pm) on BBC One, with the patriotic fun attracting 5 million and 5.9 million viewers, respectively.
Outside of its usual Saturday night slot, the never-ending drama of Casualty (BBC One) brought in 4.2 million viewers at 9:15pm.
Earlier, the game between Belgium and Russia secured the biggest FIFA World Cup 2014 audience of the day, with 4 million viewers and a 31% share on BBC One at 4:30pm.
Finally, Channel 4 offered up some closure for fans of Fargo (4pm), the TV show inspired by the Coen Brothers’ film of the same name. The tenth and final episode of the well-received show starred Martin Freeman as a psychopath in a suit and tie and Billy Bob Thorton as a straight-up nut-job, who both careered through a maze of murder and mayhem in a sleepy Minnesota town.
Opening up with 1.6 million viewers back in April, the series settled around the 1 million mark in recent weeks.
Last night’s finale, which will give way to a second series of entirely new characters, was watched by 1.1 million people and a 2% share and generated the fourth largest amount of tweets for the night.
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.
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