Summer Of Sport Boosts Eurosport Audience
Eurosport has reported one of its best ever summer audience results, attracting over 50 million different European viewers for each of the major events broadcast on its channels.
The Group’s core sports of cycling, tennis, football and Olympic disciplines all achieved increased audiences to its extensive live coverage and expert presentation.
The 100th Tour de France was historic in terms of audiences for Eurosport, who attracted 53m viewers, its best audience reach for the event since 2009.
Football kicked off summer action on 21st June with the FIFA Under-20 World Cup watched by 54.1m viewers throughout the tournament on Eurosport and Eurosport 2 (+ 16% vs. 2011 previous edition).
In July host broadcaster Eurosport showed every match of the UEFA Women’s European Championship live and drew 55m fans to the competition, according to the station’s figures, a 53% increase in average audience, compared to the 2009 edition in Finland.
The Swimming and Athletics World Championships in Barcelona and Moscow respectively, also broke the 50m mark with 50.3m and 51.8m viewers. Live coverage of both events led by Olympic Champions Pieter van den Hoogenband and Maurice Greene saw strong audience reach increases on Eurosport: +45% for Barcelona and + 22% for Moscow, compared to the previous 2011 editions.
Finally, multi-court coverage and a line-up of consultants featuring Marion Bartoli, Mats Wilander, Amélie Mauresmo and Henri Leconte helped to bring the 2013 US Open to 55.4m tennis fans on Eurosport and Eurosport 2 (+3% vs. 2012). The event also performed strongly on mobile with 556,000 daily visitors in average on Eurosport.com, a record 77% increase compared to the 2012 tournament.
On 28th September Eurosport will make its TV debut in the US on Discovery’s Velocity Channel with a motorsports highlights programming block named Eurosport on Velocity.
