The opening game (Bafana v Mexico) on Friday, 11 June 2010, drew over 10 million South Africans viewers, making this the single largest television audience in local broadcasting history to view a single event. In fact, during the final minutes of the game, only 10% of the country's viewers were not tuned into the game.
These statistics should come as little surprise to South Africans. The country never really opened for business that Friday morning and, by mid-afternoon, British soccer fans could have been excused for thinking that those panga-wielding gangs supposedly roaming our streets really did exterminate their countrymen before turning on one another (very effectively).
Nielsen found that the match was watched by a significant number of women - as many as 3.6 million viewers were female. Ninety five percent of the TV viewing audience from the Nguni and Sotho language groups watched the Bafana match, while just over 70% of Afrikaans speakers tuned in. Ninety two percent of English/'other language group' (talk about dismissing the majority of official languages in this country) viewers watched the Bafana match.
As mentioned, interest nosedived after the game, probably because by now TV viewers were both starving and very, very thirsty, which one shall blame on all that vuvuzela blowing. Only 64% stayed tuned into the France v Uruguay match and this figure dropped to 30% of Afrikaans tongue viewers. Even then Nielsen recorded significant channel-switching during the France v Uruguay game.
Safely conclude
Nielsen haven't yet revealed information on viewership for follow-up games but the excitement after the draw with Mexico would lead one to safely conclude that the SA vs Uruguay game on 16 June would have drawn significant numbers. This seems to be borne out by statistics released by DStv. The game attracted 1 383 000 DStv viewers on SuperSport3 topping the 1 197 000 DStv viewers for the opening game (DStv stats exclude out of home, SSHD and guests).
Other games attracting a significant viewership on DStv were Spain vs Switzerland (1 127 000 viewers), Argentina vs. Nigeria (1 114 000 viewers), and England vs USA (1 080 000 viewers). Sport retains the greatest share of the DStv audience during SA games.
The 2010 World Cup is also attracting significant ratings overseas. The Hollywood Reporter notes that 19% of the Mexican population with access to television watched the opening match, while 8.7 million Germans tuned into ARD; 4.4 million fans tuned in in France, as did 4.3 million Brits. Spain's Telecinco drew 3.1 million viewers. THR also reports that 24 million Chinese watched the Greece vs South Korea game. German broadcaster ZDF drew an audience of 28 million for the game between Germany and Australia.
In the UK, ITV's coverage of the England v USA drew nearly 20 million viewers. This compares to around 4.3 million viewers for the opening game and 2.2 million viewers for the opening ceremony according to data published by The Guardian. In the US, the TV audience for soccer is relatively small but still showed significant growth from 2006 according to US media reports. The USA vs England game attracted about 17.1 million viewers between channels ABC and Univision.
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