Men's 400m Hurdles Draws Just Under 12 Million Viewers On The BBC Monday

Great Britain hurdler Dai Greene's fourth-place finish in the men's 400m hurdles was watched by just less than 12 million viewers on BBC channels, Monday's biggest London Games audience, according to John Plunkett of the London GUARDIAN. The Dominican Republic's Felix Sanchez won the race, which was "watched by a five-minute peak of 11.6 million viewers on BBC1, a 42.8% share of the audience" at 8:45pm, with another 349,000 watching on BBC Olympics 1. BBC1's evening Olympics program averaged 9.3 million viewers, a 37.3% share, between 7pm and 10pm. BBC3's evening program had an average of 700,000 viewers (2.8%) between 7pm and 11pm, peaking with 1.8 million viewers (8.2%) in the five minutes from 10:10pm. Additionally, a total of 5.3 million viewers watched Great Britain's Beth Tweddle win her first Olympic Medal with a Bronze in the uneven bars. And toward the beginning of the day, a total of 2.2 million viewers watched Great Britain win its first showjumping Gold Medal in 60 years (GUARDIAN, 8/7). The London TELEGRAPH cited the IOC saying that more than 50.572 million people, about 88% of the total number of U.K. residents, have tuned in "as Britain closes in on its best Games in more than a century." IOC TV Marketing Services Managing Dir Timo Lumme said, "I think London 2012 heralds a new era in Olympic broadcasting." He said that there are "likely to be more than 100,000 hours of TV footage of the Games," compared with 61,000 hours for Beijing in '08. He added that digital output, online and on mobile phones is "also expected to exceed the amount of TV footage for the first time." Lumme said organizers believe the London Games' broadcasts will reach "more viewers than ever before," with a global reach of 4.8 billion across every country in the world (TELEGRAPH, 8/7).

GERMANY'S OLYMPIC FEVER: QUOTENMETER.de's Sidney Schering reported that the "Olympic fever" in Germany did not slow down and "attracted almost 8 million viewers." Public broadcaster ARD's Olympic highlight show "Olympia Telegramm" gained Monday's top rating. A total of 7.99 million viewers or a "sensational" 30.7% tuned in at 10:15pm CEST. In the marketing relevant age group 14-49, the show attracted 3.1 million viewers or 28.8%. ARD's coverage of Monday's track and field events was watched by an average of 7.21 million people. The market share of the track and field events in the target group was 23.5%. Boxing attracted 6.34 million viewers or 28.9% overall and 23.9% in the target group. A high number of people also watched Olympic diving at 10:55pm. A total of 4.76 million viewers or 24.6% overall and 20.8% in the target group watched the men's 3m springboard preliminary round. In addition, table tennis and sailing proved to be very popular with the viewers of the target group. ARD's afternoon coverage of those two events had a market share of 23.7% and 23.5%, respectively (QUOTENMETER.de, 8/7).

SPAIN'S SLAM DUNK: VERTELE reported that La 1's coverage of the Olympics men's basketball game between Spain and Brazil was watched by 2.24 million people for a 20% market share. The most-watched minute came at 10:42pm when 3.699 million people were tuned in or a 24.7% share (VERTELE, 7/8).