World Cup breaks TV viewing records across the globe

As the FIFA World Cup enters the knock-out stages (unfortunately without the England squad), new research from Pepp TV reveals the record-breaking impact the football tournament has had on TV viewing across the world.

England’s opening match against Italy had 15.3 million Italians watching, compared with 15.4 million Brits, as the likes of Rooney and Gerrard started as they probably didn’t mean to go on. England’s next defeat against Uruguay drew in a peak audience of 19.7 million UK viewers (a 71% share) – the highest peak audience on any UK channel since the 2012 London Olympics.

Elsewhere in Europe, the French victory over Honduras scored a 56.3% audience share in France (15.9 million viewers), while the match between Belgium and South Korea was the most watched game in the history of Belgian TV, reaching 3 million Flemish fans (83% of TV viewers) and 2.1 million French-speaking Belgians (82%).

On the other side of the globe, a record number of Brazilians (42.9 million) tuned in to see their team’s win over Croatia, which also became the most watched opening match in at least the last 12 years in the UK (11.2 million viewers).

The US’s first game drew more than 11 million viewers – the highest-rated football match ever shown on ESPN – while an 8am broadcast of Australia v Chile didn’t manage to deter 2.3 million Australians from watching the game.

The research also revealed the growing popularity of second screening, with 12.2 million tweets sent during Brazil’s win over Croatia. The audited global figures will not be known for some time but Pepp TV says that broadcasters are already optimistic that the viewing numbers for the final game on 13 July may match – or surpass – the 909 million who watched the Spain v Netherlands final in 2010.