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FIFA World Cup numbers huge for SBS

Updated: SBS On Demand is seeing huge BVOD audiences for football in Qatar.

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The FIFA World Cup has proven so successful for SBS this week that it is poised to snatch 4th place ahead of 10 in the final week of survey.

The first week of football from Qatar has driven massive across both its linear and digital channels, via SBS OnDemand.

Australia v France drew a linear television audience at 711,000 viewer (combining metro / regional audiences), with BVOD added to a total 1.00 million viewers.

Argentina v Saudi Arabia, watched by an average audience of linear (546,000) and BVOD -pushing it 877,000.

“We could not be happier with the first week of the tournament,” said Ken Shipp, SBS Director of Sport. “Millions of Australians have been captivated not just by the Socceroos matches but also other highlights such as Argentina versus Saudi Arabia, with around 40% of the audience coming via SBS On Demand.”

The five most watched World Cup matches on SBS so far are:

 

Source: OzTAM (Metro, VPM), Regional TAM.

Updated: SBS has now reissued numbers with corrected BVOD data.

17 Responses

  1. Antony Green is exemplary. The data analysis by the panel was good. The systems had odd figures early on due to more independents and other candidates. It wasn’t until a few hours before a clearer picture emerged.

    The panel that was diverse did very well to stay neutral. The Deputy Leader made me switch channels for good eventually though, because of excessive partisanship. Even The Greens had a professional front on the program itself, though the claims of a Greenslide are exaggerated when their primary vote hardly changed at all and only shifted seats. One of the more disappointing, or happy results. But one of the better election coverages from ABC. And from Southbank. Paul Mercurio also made an appearance as a celebrity candidate.

    I stayed with ABC for the majority of the night, though it’s good to tune into some of the other coverage occasionally throughout the day to get a broader perspective.

  2. seven and optus have the women’s world cup next year so will be interesting to see how seven covers it .. would assume mel McLaughlin will do heavy lifting hosting duties . next men’s world cup 26 in north america won’t have prime time games

    1. Yep. Due to the massive time difference, it will not be ideal for socceroos fans.
      The 2026 FIFA WC will expand to 48 teams. Why having 48 teams in the tournament is way beyond me. The problem was that FIFA only cares about making money over fans. Therefore, greed will kill sport. By having more matches in the tournament, some fans will lose interest in the WC. When you have more teams in the WC, there’s a strong possibility that there will be so many lopsided games.

  3. Despite all the controversies, viewers aren’t protesting by switching off.
    Looks like the Qatar authorities are staging a great tournament – let’s hope the Aussie team can win their remaining matches.

  4. Does anyone know why a ten, nine or seven didn’t secure these rights? Does SBS have along term agreement perhaps. Seems obvious that ten should have it to supplement their Oz soccer rights; but even for seven or nine, the timing is good in that it doesn’t interfere with other major sports……

    1. tvtonight.com.au/2011/10/sbs-scores-2018-and-2022-fifa-world-cups.html
      Hopefully SBS can renew for future world cups. Can envisage what 7, 9 or 10 would do to it with their constant annoying ‘pop-ups’ for their 2023 trash. SBS scored courtesy of the Optus fiasco – #floptus – in 2018, taking games back from Optus which SBS had already on-sold to Optus. Don’t know if Optus is streaming this year’s. Seen no ads. Maybe just concentrate on hacking prevention Optus.

          1. You are correct. I have always tried to offer readers the info at their fingertips and keep the site as “self serve” as possible. Very often when readers ask me a question I do exactly the same process, search the archive.

    2. Doesn’t seem obvious at all that 10 should have it. SBS have been covering the FIFA World Cup for as long as I can remember and doing a great job. It is only right that SBS should be the broadcaster. Imagine 10 doing the World Cup with all the ads for their crap reality shows every 5 minutes. No thanks!

    3. SBS has always had the rights. They did a deal to swap 2018 to Optus for a Premiere League game each round. Optus found they were unable to meet streaming demand and Optus had to give up rights. An entire FTA channel is need, then the spill over can be managed online. Optus will probably do joint coverage of the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Seven and Nine have heavily invested in AFL, NRL and the Tennis and have never been interested in a sport with 55m blocks of play with no space for ads, that was supposed to occur in Jun/July, so the rights haven’t been expensive. Qatar got moved to November and SBS is only allowed 10 minutes of ads + promos an hour so it has worked out well for them. Paramount has soccer as their major sport, but that is a recent thing. They struggled to get the A-league right but do hold the rights to stream European soccer in the US. Maybe they will be interested in the future World Cups.

    4. Back in late 2000, 9 bought the rights to 16 games of the 2002 FIFA WC (even if it doesn’t involve Socceroos), while the rest were shown on SBS. As a little kid, I saw a little bit of their coverage. But Nine’s coverage was OK, but not as good as SBS. I can’t remember who hosted 9’s FIFA coverage.

    5. The SBS took some pride as the go to football (soccer) channel when Les Murray and Johnny Warren were at their peek promoting the world game for Australian fans, for me having the FIFA World Cup televised anywhere else other than on the SBS would be unthinkable considering the vested sporting interests of the FTA’s main commercial channels. If the SBS do really well with their coverage this year the broadcast rights may be more competitive in the future, I hope not.

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