Online Surge Offsets BBC Final Flop

16 Jul 2018 | tshego

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More than 44 million people in the UK watched the BBC’s 2018 World Cup coverage, according to post-tournament figures released by the corporation.

But the audience for the final match, which saw France beat England’s conquerors Croatia, was significantly down on the previous edition, reaching a peak of 10.4 million, versus 17.1 million for the final in 2014.

Early figures suggest that 11.4 million UK viewers tuned in through the game, including 2.8 million on commercial channel ITV. The number is half the 22.2 million that saw France win its first World Cup star on home soil in 1998.

Overall, total BBC tournament reach of 44.5 million, representing the number of people who viewed at least 15 minutes of the corporation’s coverage, is up on the equivalent figure of 40.7 million four years ago when the event was staged in Brazil.

The impact of the England team’s strong performance in Russia can be seen in the 89% peak share recorded for the team’s quarter-final match versus Sweden – the BBC’s most-watched game of the tournament. The broadcaster missed out on England’s crunch round of 16 and semi-final games to commerical rival ITV.

The Sweden match was also the BBC’s highest online-viewed programme in history, with 3.8 million live requests across BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport.

Overall, Russia 2018 saw a record-breaking 56.3 million BBC live online requests, with a further 10.5 million on-demand.

Other popular matches included England’s opening game against Tunisia, its record-breaking Panama win, as well as the Brazil vs Belgium and Spain vs Russia encounters, which each attracted more than 2 million online requests.

Bring it on. https://t.co/rD6mSsz0AD

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) July 15, 2018

The BBC’s digital coverage of the tournament featured a number of innovations including a VR app, which the corporation says was downloaded 400,000 times, as well as a World Cup Daily podcast which achieved more than 2.07 million downloads and 300,000 streams.

A new BBC online ‘Player Rater’ generated 11.9 million ratings, with South Korea and Spurs star Son Heung-Min emerging as the highest-scored player across the tournament (7.43 points on average). Defender Kieran Trippier came out top for England, with an average of 7.19.

Director of BBC Sport, Barbara Slater said: “We have just witnessed one of the most memorable World Cup tournaments ever which has captivated football fans across the United Kingdom.

“The interest in the tournament and the achievement of England winning through to the semi-finals has been proven in the record-breaking figures for TV and online. It shows the impact that top quality sport can have when made freely available to everyone.

“We promised to provide 24/7 coverage and our highly praised output on TV, radio and online for the last 32 days has ensured nobody missed any of the action from Russia 2018.”

The BBC says its overall audience appreciation index score of 82 is the highest for a World Cup tournament on the BBC.

The FIFA World Cup remains a Category A protected event that must be available on free-to-air channels, alongside the likes of the FA Cup final, the Grand National, the Wimbledon Championships and the Olympic and Paralympic Games.