| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Karl |
Posted - Nov 26 2003 : 11:23:23 PM
FIFA World Cup™ ratings success - results confirm event as a “24/7” viewing experience
24th June 2002, Seoul, Korea. As the 2002 FIFA World Cup™ Korea/Japan progresses towards its climax, it has become a 24 hours a day, seven days a week viewing phenomenon around the world.
The novel experience of staging the World Cup in Asia has provided an extra-ordinary response from television viewers in every continent. Many national audience records are being broken, in spite of non-prime-time live viewing hours in Europe and the Americas.
The pattern of viewing has also changed, with people watching crunch matches “out of home” in record numbers. The out of home audience is said to have risen as high as 43% of the total audience in the UK for the key Argentina v England meeting (Source: Sporting Insights). A more conservative estimate of out of home viewing in key European markets is the 20% - 25% range. (Source: SponsorMetrix)
Big screen viewing has become a major feature. 2.8 million people in Korea took to the streets in 223 locations to watch the Portugal v Korea match at official public viewing events on big screens and 4.2 million for the Korea v Italy game. (Source: Korea Pool)
Office viewing, particularly in Europe, accounts for significant numbers of people – estimated to be up to 10% of the audience total.
Finally, if you cannot get to a television set, there is the Internet. This World Cup has become an Internet phenomenon, with FIFAworldcup.com becoming the most successful sports event website ever, overtaking the previous record holders, the Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games just one week after the start of the World Cup. Since kick-off, a staggering 1.452 billion page views have been registered (as of 21st June). The record number of page views on a day was 127.9 million on 18th June. (Source: FIFAworldcup.com/Yahoo!)
Among notable primary television ratings in Europe are the massive 42.6 in Italy for the South Korea v Italy match, with a total audience of 23.6 million people and an 89% share. The Spain v Ireland game received a 26.6 rating, with 10.5 million viewers in Spain and an 81% audience share. Germany v Paraguay won 18.1 million viewers in Germany, rating 25.4 on ARD with an audience share of 88%. (Source: FIFA Marketing / Sponsorship Intelligence).
England’s win over Argentina attracted a match audience of 11.9 million, with a peak audience share of 86% (Source: Sports Marketing Surveys - SMS). However, once the out-of-home audience in pubs and offices is included, the total is believed to be 21 million. (Sporting Insights) BBC estimates put the figure even higher, at 24 million.
All matches featuring England have delivered ratings that are higher than for any UK sports broadcast in the whole of 2001. For England v Brazil, the “overnights” report an audience of 13.1 million for the BBC broadcast (Source: BBC) excluding out of home viewing. The highest UK rating for a match featuring England was for the round of 16 against Denmark, which was 28.2. This equates to 15.6 million viewers. (Source: FIFA Marketing / Sponsorship Intelligence).
In Asia, the benefit of being in the same time zone has provided Asian audiences with a ring-side seat at the World Cup. This factor – combined with the active participation of Korea, Japan and China, has sent ratings through the roof.
In China, the national team’s direct involvement promoted record television ratings, with more than half the urban population aged 4+ watching at least some part of the China v Brazil game. (TNSSPORT/CSM-Sofres China) This match had an audited audience of 108 million on CCTV2 and CCTV5. However, it was also broadcast live on regional channels, which significantly adds to the audience of the national carrier. In Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the combined ratings were in the region of 33. If replicated across the country, the total audience for this match would be around 330 million people. (Source: FIFA Marketing / Sponsorship Intelligence)
Interest in the tournament has remained high, even after China’s elimination, with Korea v Italy attracting the greatest interest.
In Japan, the record rating of the competition was the amazing 51.2 rating for Japan v Russia on CX, with 62.3 million viewers – the highest sports coverage rating in Japan in the last three decades. Japan v Turkey, Japan’s exit match, had a rating of 27, with 33 million viewers and an audience share of 82.2% (Source: Dentsu/Video Research)
Korea’s dramatic victory against Italy achieved a television audience of more than 30 million people in South Korea (Source: Korea Pool). If proof were needed that football appeals to both sexes, then Korea is that proof. The split between men and women for the matches Portugal v Korea and Korea v. Italy revealed higher ratings for women than for men. Indeed, 55% of the adult audience for these games were women. (Source: FIFA Marketing / Sponsorship Intelligence).
USA’s surprise win against Portugal gained the largest ever soccer audience for sports television network ESPN2, despite a 5 am kick-off. (Source: Nielsen Media Research)
Univision, the leading Spanish language network in the USA, has claimed that sports enthusiasts are “trading sleep for soccer”, watching Univision and TeleFutura broadcasts in record numbers. Mexico v USA – broadcast live at the thoroughly unsociable hour of 2.15 a.m. EST, still managed to lure US viewers from their beds in very large numbers. An amazing 2.2 million households watched the match on Univision in the middle of the night, with an audience of 4.16 million individuals. (Source: Univision)
Brazil’s round of 16 game against Belgium was seen by 50 million viewers in Brazil – an audience share of 91%. The Brazil v China game had a 52.4 million audience, a rating of 35.2 and an even bigger share of 92.8% (Source: FIFA Marketing / Sponsorship Intelligence).
The atmosphere of celebration, the shared public viewing, the superb organisation and the extraordinary warmth of the welcome offered to visiting fans are hallmarks of a World Cup unlike any other, confirming FIFA’s decision to break with tradition and give Asia its opportunity to stage the event.
Dr Alexander Liegl, Managing Director Sports Rights of KirchMedia, said: “As the momentum builds towards the final, we are receiving a tremendously positive response to the television coverage – from our broadcast partners and also from viewers, as evidenced by the ratings and audience shares. We are seeing a new kind of viewing – on a much wider variety of media – round the clock and round the world.”
For further information: KirchSport AG KirchSport AG (KirchSport Liaison Office, Seoul, IBC) John Kristick Christine Knoepffler +41-41-723-1515 +82 (0)2 3466 6804 +82 (0)11 9679 9878 (mobile)
KirchSport AG, based in Zug, Switzerland, is part of KirchMedia’s sports group. It has exclusive responsibility for the worldwide marketing and sales of the broadcasting rights for the 2002 and 2006 World Cup™. The two rights holding companies for the World Cup broadcast rights – KirchMedia WM AG and KirchMedia WM GmbH – are fully-controlled subsidiaries of KirchSport AG. Host Broadcast Services AG (HBS), the dedicated host broadcast company for the 2002 FIFA World Cup™, is also a subsidiary of KirchSport AG. |
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