Rugby Final Biggest UK Program Of The Year

It was a rotten weekend for British sports – South Africa beating England 15-6 in the rugby final and Lewis Hamilton failing in his quest for the Formula 1 driver championship -- but for commercial broadcaster ITV it was about as good as it is ever going to get.

Unofficial figures put Saturday night’s UK viewership at around 15.1 million for a 58% share and at one time it hit a peak around 16 million for a 62% share. Those are the highest numbers for any program broadcast in the UK this year but are actually quite a bit lower than reality since viewership is not logged for the millions of fans packing pubs across the land watching the game on large screen TVs.

Then on the Sunday the nation was again on edge as Brit Lewis Hamilton attempted to win the Formula 1 driver championship in the final race of the year at the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paolo, for which ITV also had exclusive rights. He failed, finishing the race seventh, but it was still a big victory for ITV.

The race, occurring in the late afternoon UK time, reached an audience peak at the finish of 10.6 million, a 50% share, and the highest share for any Grand Prix in seven years. The average program share was 41%. - Philip Stone October 22, 2007

Keywords: Rugby World Cup, sports media coverage

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