TV Top Ten
A lot of people have been asking about ratings and how different teams attract audiences.
Today seemed a good opportunity to update the Top 10 because ITV and the 91¸£ÀûÉç have had one televised England match each so far - and ITV have England v Sweden tonight while we have England's 2nd round match at the weekend, both of which should do very well and change the overall picture.
So at the moment the state of play between the channels is that 91¸£ÀûÉç matches have been watched by an average of 5.1m viewers (36% audience share) while ITV matches have attracted an average of 4.5m viewers (32% audience share). In terms of the top 10 matches, the current rundown is...
1. ITV England v Trinidad & Tobago 16.5m
2. 91¸£ÀûÉç England v Paraguay 12.8m
3. 91¸£ÀûÉç Brazil v Croatia 10.0m
4. ITV Brazil v Australia 9.3m
5. 91¸£ÀûÉç Germany v Poland 9.0m
6= 91¸£ÀûÉç Spain v Tunisia 7.7m
6= ITV Sweden v Paraguay 7.7m
8. 91¸£ÀûÉç Italy v Ghana 7.6m
9. 91¸£ÀûÉç France v S Korea 7.2m
10. ITV Poland v Ecuador 6.8m
So little doubt people like watching Brazil... (and you can see Brazil v Japan on 91¸£ÀûÉç One on Thursday night).
In terms of the least popular games, this is really a function of kick-off time. The 2pm kick-offs do best for viewers on broadband but do worst in television ratings terms, which explains why what many think of as the best game in the tournament (Argentina's six goal thrashing of Serbia & Montenegro) did comparatively poorly. So the bottom five are:
1= Ecuador v Costa Rica 2.1m
1= Spain v Ukraine 2.1m
3. Argentina v Serbia & Montenegro 2.4m
4. South Korea v Togo 2.5m
5. Togo v Switzerland 2.6m
For the avoidance of spin, we're using the BARB overnight ratings and the figures are for the peak 15 minutes of the transmission. A further update follows next Monday after two more England games...
