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Business of TV Sport
Sportel Monaco 2011

Silver lining for Holland’s NOS as huge audience watches World Cup defeat

The Fifa World Cup final, in which Spain beat Holland on Sunday night, drew the second-biggest Dutch television audience ever, as 8.5 million viewers, a 90.6-per-cent audience share, watched the match on free-to-air channel Nederland 1, according to overnight figures from audience measurement company Eurodata TV Worldwide. Nederland 1 is operated by public-service broadcaster NOS.
In Spain, 13.4 million watched on free-to-air channel Telecinco, a 78.1-per-cent audience share. Telecinco’s coverage peaked at 15. 72 million viewers and an 85.5-per-cent audience share. The 30 minutes of extra time drew Spain’s highest television audience ever, with 15.605 million (an 85.9-per-cent share) watching across Telecinco and the pay-television channels of broadcaster Sogecable. Telecinco’s extra-time coverage drew 14.58 million viewers, with Canal Plus having 517,000 and Canal Plus Liga 506,000.

The match drew an audience of 25.1 million in Germany, where it was shown by ZDF, one of the country’s two public-service broadcasters. The biggest German audience for the tournament was over 31 million, for the Germany-Spain semi-final last Wednesday, shown by ARD, the country’s other public-service broadcaster.

Italy’s state broadcaster Rai drew an audience of 11.4 million for the final. French commercial broadcaster TF1 had an audience of 14.1 million.

SABC, the public-service broadcaster in World Cup host country South Africa, had an audience of 7.5 million for the final, a 64.2-per-cent share.

Chinese public-service channel CCTV5 had an audience of 54.5 million for the Germany v Argentina quarter-final, which was broadcast at 10pm local time.