The beeb’s World Cup offerings were a draw for the corporation.
The last time football ‘came home’ to England, 1966.
“This World Cup has seen a huge increase in people following the action over the internet, through BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer. Live match requests rocketed from a total of 15.9m at Brazil 2014 to 56.3m this year, and World Cup content on the BBC Sport website went up from 32.3m UK unique browsers to 49.2m in the same period. We continue to improve things behind-the-scenes and create new experiences that make these major events even more engaging for our audiences.” – Neil Hall, Head of Sport Product, BBC Design & Engineering
BBC Sport is celebrating their ‘massive 44.5m’ overall viewing figures for this years World Cup coverage on the beeb with the England v Sweden match bringing in the highest peak share of entire tournament at 89% to the corporation.
Millions across the country have witnessed moments that will stay with them forever, including England reaching their first semi-final in 28 years. The Three Lions’ quarter-final against Sweden holds the highest peak share of the whole tournament at 89% and became the BBC’s highest online-viewed live programme ever with 3.8m (3.9m including on-demand) live requests on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport.
The tournament overall saw a record-breaking 66.8m match requests (live and on-demand) with 56.3m of these being live requests.
A thrilling World Cup final between France and Croatia yesterday afternoon captivated a peak (1 min) BBC One TV audience of 10.4m with 54% peak share (1 min) and 2m live requests (with 36k on-demand) to stream the match online on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport.
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.” – Barbara Slater, Director of BBC Sport
