England’s heartbreaking defeat to France on Saturday became the most-viewed UK TV broadcast of the year so far, peaking with 21.3M viewers on ITV1.
23.11.2022 - 13:59 / deadline.com
Despite being plagued by injuries that knocked out some key players in past weeks, France entered the World Cup with a bang on Tuesday — and scored a ratings victory for TF1 at the same time. At home, an average 12.53 million viewers tuned in from 8 PM local time to watch Les Bleus defeat Australia’s Socceroos 4-1.
That gave the leading broadcaster, and all of French television, the biggest audience of the year and the best since June 2021. Market share averaged 48.1%. BeIn Sport, which is also showing the matches, does not communicate viewing figures.
The strong turnout is despite earlier polls which indicated that 54% of French people said they would not be watching the tournament due to the controversy surrounding host country Qatar. Several major cities and towns are not showing matches on giant outdoor screens or organizing fan zones as would normally be custom.
Tuesday night’s audience score is not far off France’s last tournament entry back in 2018 (which was also played against Australia). At the time, and on a Saturday afternoon, TF1 nabbed its best numbers of the year to that point with an average 12.6 million viewers and a 69% share.
In other fun facts for the reigning World Cup champions, Olivier Giroud marked two goals on Tuesday night, to tie France’s all-time record scorer, Thierry Henry, at 51.
Meanwhile, after Saudi Arabia’s stunning 2-1 victory over Argentina on Tuesday, the Gulf country has declared today a national holiday.
Today’s matches include Morocco v Croatia, Germany v Japan, Spain v Costa Rica and Belgium v Canada. France next boots up on Saturday against Denmark.
England’s heartbreaking defeat to France on Saturday became the most-viewed UK TV broadcast of the year so far, peaking with 21.3M viewers on ITV1.
England’s comfortable second round victory over Senegal last night was watched by a peak of nearly 20M viewers on ITV, becoming the most-viewed of the Qatar World Cup 2022 tournament so far in the UK.
With another winning performance at the World Cup, this time defeating Poland in the round of 16, the French national football team also led broadcaster TF1 to yet another ratings record for the year. An average 14.3 million viewers tuned in to see Les Bleus notch a 3-1 victory on Sunday, from the 4pm hour local time. This is the best score for all channels across 2022 and since July 2021. The audience share was 68.9%.
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The U.S. advanced to the knockout stage of the 2022 World Cup on Tuesday after a 1-0 victory over Iran, which drew an impressive average of 12M viewers on Fox.
England’s emphatic 3-0 victory over local rival Wales in the Qatar World Cup was seen by a peak UK audience of 18.7M.
France’s 2-1 victory in the World Cup group stage over Denmark on Saturday evening drew an average 11.6 million viewers to TF1 from the 5PM hour local time. This is second best audience score of the year for all programs and across all channels in the Hexagon. Upon entering the tournament last week, Les Bleus set a record for viewership in 2022, and since June 2021.
The United States went head-to-head with England on Friday in a historic World Cup match that drew 15.4M viewers for Fox.
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The United States began its 2022 World Cup campaign on Monday against Wales, scoring nearly 12M viewers across Fox and Telemundo.
Sunday’s 2022 World Cup opener between hosts Qatar and Ecuador drew an average of about 3.2M multi-platform viewers for Fox Sports.
England’s fiery World Cup opener against Iran, which ended 6-2, was watched by a peak of 8M viewers yesterday lunchtime in the UK. The peak was similar to that of host Qatar’s opener with Ecuador.