MEDIA RELEASE: SBSS FIFA WORLD CUP MULTI-PLATFORM BROADCAST A SUCCESS WITH TV AUDIENCES UP 15% ON 2010S FINAL
15 July, 2014
Yesterday morning the 2014 FIFA World Cup came to a close, after 25 days of play in Brazil, with Germany claiming their 1-0 victory over Argentina.
For the first time in its nearly 30 year history of World Cup coverage, SBS built on its exclusive broadcast offering, delivering content across more platforms than ever before; TV, radio, online, tablet and mobile, providing more opportunities for Australian audiences to engage with SBS’s World Cup content and more opportunities for its sponsors to align with its exclusive coverage.
SBS aired all 64 matches live across its channels, providing over 700 hundred hours of TV coverage and reaching 10.7 million Australians across the whole month.
SBS’s online team delivered the World Cup edition of The World Game, a fully responsive web experience, along with the iOS and Android apps, which provided the most interactive multiscreen coverage of any sporting event ever seen in Australia. Record-breaking video traffic was delivered through these platforms, setting a new benchmark for sports coverage in this country. There were 13.8 million video streams viewed, with Socceroos’ matches the most popular among SBS football fans. Across all platforms, SBS’s audience viewed more than 50 million pages of World Cup content, while World Game FIFA World Cup Edition Mobile app was downloaded more than 400,000 times.
This year, SBS Radio broadcast in 15 languages, with every match broadcast in at least two languages simultaneously. With two radio stations dedicated to the World Cup, SBS’s radio broadcast was in more languages than ever before, and the most languages from a single network globally, in the history of the FIFA World Cup.
Yesterday’s early morning final match between Germany and Argentina averaged 1.14 million viewers (882,000 Metro + 262,000 Regional), with a Metro FTA Share of 71.5%, a Regional FTA Share of 51.9% and a peak audience of 1.75 million (Metro + Regional — Program Average and Share based on actual whistle times, Peak Minute adjusted for time-zone). The Combined Metro + Regional Average Audience was 152,000 or 15.3% higher than that achieved by the Grand Final of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
On the strength of the FIFA World Cup Final and Stage 10 of the Tour de France, SBS ONE achieved a Metro FTA share of 12.6% (All Day 2am-2am).
Yesterday’s Live Stream of the grand final between Germany and Argentina was viewed 260,000 times. In June, sbs.com.au achieved a record Unique Audience of 1.7 million according to Nielsen Onilne Ratings. This was driven by theworldgame.sbs.com.au which attracted a record Unique Audience of 645,000.
SBS Managing Director Michael Ebeid said, “SBS is the spiritual home of football and every four years we get to showcase the greatest sporting event in the world.
This year in Brazil the World Cup has been an outstanding success for SBS, with our most comprehensive cross-platform offering ever.
SBS lives and breathes football — a sport that unites local communities and the entire world. The FIFA World Cup brings cultures together and there is no broadcaster better placed than SBS to bring that celebration of the world’s diversity back home, free to air, for all Australians to enjoy.”
SBS Director of Sport Ken Shipp said, “SBS has broadcast the FIFA World Cup exclusively since 1990 and this year we offered more content than ever before to Australian audiences.
SBS’s coverage extended across TV, online, radio, mobile, tablet and social media and it paid off, with SBS reaching 10.7 million Australians with our TV broadcast, over 13 million video streams viewed and the SBS World Cup app download more than 400,000 times. SBS radio offered commentary in 15 languages, the largest ever by a broadcaster in World Cup history.
The 2014 FIFA World Cup was a particularly special one for SBS, as it was Les Murray’s last at the helm. Les has been instrumental in building the profile of football not only as a major sport platform for SBS but more importantly, integral at establishing football as a premium sport in Australia.
I am very pleased that Les will continue to play an important role as an expert in our team of SBS football analysts — as I am sure his many fans will be, too.
I’m also incredibly proud of the effort and dedication from the SBS on-air and production team. The coverage has been outstanding and their ability to deliver content to audiences across all platforms is world class.
The football coverage also doesn’t end here. There is plenty more football and sport to come on SBS, including the Hyundai A-League and the UEFA Champions League, plus the 2018 & 2022 FIFA World Cups.”
SBS’S coverage of the Hyundai A-League kicks off on October 10 when Melbourne Victory take on the Western Sydney Wanderers.
Live coverage of Stage 10 of the Tour de France averaged 312,000 (217,000 Metro + 95,000 Regional), achieving 14.2% Metro FTA Share, 15.0% Regional FTA Share and a Peak Minute Audience of 352,000 (Metro + Regional — Average Audience and Share based on Overnight Program Logs, Peak Minute Audience adjusted for time-zone).
It was a dramatic day in the mountains at the Tour de France as the race was rocked by the abandonment of favourite Alberto Contador after a heavy crash. Five teammates rallied to pace him back to the front, yet Contador was injured and losing too much time to continue.
Vincenzo Nibali went on the attack with a kilometre to go to win Stage Ten and regain the yellow jersey, with Australia’s Richie Porte climbing up the general classification to second place, 2 min 23 sec behind Nibali.
SBS’s coverage of the 2014 Tour de France has reached 4.2 million Australians (2,938,000 Metro + 1,107,000 Regional) since coverage began on July the 5th.
Since SBS’s coverage of the Tour de France began on July 5th, the SBS Tour de France Skoda Tour Tracker 2014 mobile app, available on iOS and Android, has been used by 142,000 Unique Users.
Tuesday is a rest day for the race, with the Tour de France Review Show from 10pm AEST on SBS ONE. Host David Basheer and guests Henk Vogels, Annabelle Drew and Anthony Tan will reflect on all of the race action, delve into the social media chatter and look at how Australian fans are celebrating the Tour.
ENDS
Source: OzTAM Metro and RegTAM Regional FTA Database; 5 City Metro + Combined Aggregated Regional Market including WA; Total Individuals, People 25-54, People 16-39 and People 18-49 including guests; SBS ONE, SBS 2 and NITV; Consolidated (Live + As Live + TSV) to 7/7/14, Overnight (Live + As Live) from 8/7/14 onwards; 02:00-02:00; Average Audience, FTA Share, 5 Minute Consecutive Reach and Peak Minute Audience; FIFA World Cup Live match Average Audience and Share based on actual whistle times, all other programs based on Overnight program logs Peak Minute Average adjusted for time-zone differences; Cume Reach for FIFA World Cup includes ‘The Full Brazilian’; Online Source: Nielsen Online Ratings – Hybrid (June, Unique Audience, SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) and SBS The World Game; Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics.