Mediaset España announced that Spain's World Cup loss against Chile on Wednesday drew more than 13.2 million viewers, which translated to a market share of 67.6%, according to the EP. La Roja's 2-0 loss -- which means the defending World Cup champion will not advance beyond the group stage -- became the most-watched World Cup group stage match in the Spanish team's history. Overall, the match drew the seventh-most viewers of any football match ever broadcast in Spain, with the audience peaking at 15.2 million viewers -- a market share of 70.7% (EP, 6/19).
IN GERMANY: QUOTENMETER's Daniel Sallhoff reported German public broadcaster ARD attracted more than 15 million viewers to its broadcast of the Spain-Chile match. The game, which started at 9pm, was watched by 15.29 million viewers on Wednesday. In the target demographic 14-49, Spain's loss attracted 6.18 million viewers. The game's market shares were 51.4% and 53.6%, respectively. ARD's pregame coverage was watched by 9.78 million viewers and had a 36.7% share. In the target demographic, the show obtained a 41.2% share. Prior to the Spain-Chile game, an average of 9.83 million viewers tuned in to watch the game between Australia and the Netherlands. The Netherlands' 3-2 win obtained a market share of 49.9% and 51% in the target demographic. Wednesday's late-night game between Cameroon and Croatia, which started at midnight, attracted 3.95 million viewers and had a 44.6% share (QUOTENMETER, 6/19).
AFRICA: GeoPoll, the world’s largest real-time mobile survey platform, on Wednesday released initial findings on TV ratings, audience size and demographics following the first games of the FIFA World Cup. The data, gathered via mobile surveys in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, provided a first-ever glimpse of the fans who are tuning into the World Cup in these countries, and represents ratings from more than 300 million African citizens. The game between Nigeria and Iran, played during prime time in Nigeria, drew 17.5 million Nigerian adult viewers, 20% of the Nigerian adult population. More than 25 million adults from all the surveyed African nations watched the Nigeria game, making it the most watched game in these markets over the first five days of play. Ghana viewership has remained high across all games: 3.5 million watched the opening game between Brazil and Croatia, and the match between Ghana and the U.S. on Monday attracted 2.4 million adult Ghanaian viewers. The U.S. vs. Ghana game aired at 10pm Ghana time, which might explain the drop in viewership numbers in the country, compared to the earlier Monday games which saw 3.1 million Ghanaian viewers. On average across the first five days of games, 2.2 million Ghanaians have tuned in to every hour of play.
At peak viewership, during the Nigeria vs. Iran game, about 15% of adults aged 15+, or 25 million total across Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, were watching the games. Nigeria had the highest total viewership numbers, with 17.5 million. Both Nigeria and Ghana have had consistently high percentages of their adult population watching the games: an average of 14% per game for Ghana and 10% per game for Nigeria.
Young people have been particularly interested in the games: in Ghana 1.7 million people aged 15-24 tuned in to the Germany-Portugal game, or about 18% of the youth population. In Kenya almost 900,000 aged 15-24 watched the same game, and in Nigeria 3.5 million youths were watching.
Gender differences were apparent across countries: in Ghana, more males watch the games -- for the first five days of game play the gender split was an average of 28% female to 72% male. In Nigeria, the gender split for the World Cup games is less dramatic than in other countries: about 38% female to 62% male (GeoPoll).
