Not everybody will agree it is “the greatest show on earth”, as RTÉ introduced it ahead of the opening game, but Qatar 2022 has certainly proved a viewer magnet, with the winter timing helping swell audiences for group stage games.
Several have clocked up the sort of viewerships normally reserved for the business end of a Fifa World Cup, with Sunday night’s clash between Spain and Germany out in front with an average audience of 521,000 — a figure that beats, for example, the 499,000 people who watched the summer Saturday afternoon quarter-final between Sweden and England in Russia 2018.
The games are also luring people to the RTÉ Player, with Spain v Germany attracting 131,000 live streams, while the 495,000 average audience for USA v England on RTÉ2 last Friday night was similarly boosted by 134,000 streams. The scoreless draw is the second most-watched match on the linear channel so far, although Portugal v Uruguay on Monday night came close. The “peak” audiences on RTÉ2 will have been higher again: 699,000 in the case of USA v England and 635,000 for Spain’s draw with Germany.
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With help from The Late Late Toy Show’s 303,000 streams, last week was a record week for the Player, with its 5.3 million weekly streams almost twice its previous record of 2.34 million. Some 3.1 million of last week’s streams were Qatar-related and the tournament has since pulled past the four million mark, according to head of RTÉ Player Aoife Byrne, who notes that 52 per cent of these streams are via smartphones. She calls the numbers “unprecedented”.
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But forget England, forget Spain. The most-streamed game to date on RTÉ Player is Argentina’s defeat to Saudi Arabia, which triggered a whopping 254,000 live streams on November 22nd. That’s a lot of love for Lionel Messi — plus a lot of people curious to see if Saudi Arabia could manage to hang on to their surprise lead. Of greater relevance, however, is the fact that this Tuesday’s match had a 10am kick-off, meaning fans were more likely to be separated from their TVs.
When England played a lunchtime World Cup game in 1998, a twinkling Des Lynam famously introduced the BBC’s coverage with the line “shouldn’t you be at work?”
RTÉ's Player statistics might prompt a similarly tongue-in-cheek inquiry. Shouldn’t you have been working?
