FIFA World Cup: Record TV audience for Brazil, England openers

Harry Kane scored a late goal to help England to a 2-1 win over Tunisia. (Source: AP)

After 99.6% of Iceland’s TV viewing population tuned in to witness their heroic performance in the 1-1 draw against Argentina, Brazil and England’s opening games at the FIFA World Cup 2018 were also well watched affairs. England’s last gasp Harry Kane header at the far post to get a 2-1 win over Tunisia, was Britain’s most-watched television programme of the year, attracting a peak audience of 18.3 million on BBC One, according to information released by BBC on Tuesday. Keeping that in mind, 70% of people watching TV at the time were watching the game.

The game, played on Monday evening in Volgograd, was decided by Kane’s header into stoppage time. At its peak, the game had a 69.2 per cent audience share, beating last month’s royal wedding. In shift of focus from TV to streaming online, around three million requests were also made to stream it on BBC’s iPlayer, making it the highest ever live audience for an online BBC broadcast.

Brazil’s 1-1 draw against Switzerland also broke sports TV records with a combined 55.89 million viewers in Brazil and 79.33% share for media outlet Globo’s coverage.

This is not the first time a game at the World Cup has been record breaking this year. Earlier, Portugal and Spain’s breathtaking 3-3 draw in which Cristiano Ronaldo scored a late free-kick goal, a massive 66.7% of Spanish TV viewers (9.27 million) tuned in which was the highest TV audience in Spain in 2018. Meanwhile, 13.17 million caught the game in Germany, more than for any other sports show in 2018.