Female World Cup TV audience share has never been higher in UK

As World Cup 2006 progresses, England’s matches are attracting growing UK TV audiences.  Initiative’s most recent ViewerTrack shows that this increase is being primarily driven by more and more females tuning into the action.  The growth in female viewing is such that the number of women watching each match is now almost equal to the number of men.

UK in-home TV audiences have grown steadily over the first three matches of England’s 2006 campaign.  England’s first two victories against Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago drew UK programme audiences of 8.8 million viewers and 11.3 million viewers respectively.  England’s draw against Sweden on Tuesday night attracted the highest UK audience of the World Cup so far with 14.4 million viewers.

It is mainly women who are fuelling this audience growth.  The UK audience for England’s first match against Paraguay was 40 per cent female, rising to 45 per cent female for England vs. Trinidad and Tobago.  The female share of viewing has never been higher for any of England’s matches in the last three World Cups than it was for England vs. Sweden last night - 47 per cent of the UK audience was female. 

Why is the female viewing share rising in the UK?  While many female fans are hardcore soccer supporters, women are more likely to be casual soccer fans than men.  They are more likely to only be interested in soccer when it becomes a cultural event of national importance.  With the media frenzy around the World Cup now in full force, these female viewers are being drawn to the pitch action. 

As England progress into the knockout stages of the 2006 World Cup and overall levels of interest continue to rise, the female viewing share is likely to keep on rising.

Comments

[Bob Copeman]

gain I have to question how these figures are arrived at ? Let's start with the 14.4 Million watching SWEDEN 2 ENGLAND 2 which differs substantially from the BARB average of 18.8 Million which as I understand it is a Home UK TV figure ? Now I can understand women joining the men watching on Big Screens in City Centres on a Saturday but less so in Pubs and Clubs so is the 47% across the board when some sources are talking about a 25 Million Audience ?

I have just struggled to watch GHANA 2 USA 1 on the BBC One Interactive option. Struggled because first of all you press the Red Button on the relevant Remote trying to ensure that the signal does not go to all the other Set Top Boxes set to watch CZECH REPUBLIC 0 ITALY 2, "Flying Misfits" [Channel Five], the Rockford Files [ITV One] and of course Royal Ascot now on BBC Two.

Up comes the message "loading please wait" and then you have the option of six initially without the red "World Cup" [option]at the top so you muck around with Sport and the 30 options and get News and other categories either because you press the wrong button or were misread ? When you eventually get the Red "World Cup" Option you still have to scroll along the bottom to press 3 to get the GHANA game. The ITV games continually promote the InterActive Options with News, Stats and god's knows what else but does anyone bother with them just as we hate it when British Eurosport insist on scrolling Text messages along the bottom as well as a couple of Channel Idents - one of which sometimes obscurs the Runnign Clock. Now in their case hardly anyone else in Britain is watching so we have to put up with it as well as those Commercials for Record Sets some of which we have heard One Thousand times without the slightest wish to buy any of them so the cost to air them must be Minimal ? But not the BBC please.

At Half Time on the BBC Interactive option you don't get any Studio Pundits talking about this game but instead you get returned to those talking about the Czech game plus a couple of Minutes of highlights from the Ghana game with the Commentary you ahve already heard ? The Ghana game then kicks off Five Minutes after the Czech match so those watching that one were treated to the last 5 Minutes of Ghana.

And once again all of this played havoc with two of our Set Top Boxes and we are having to wait an see whether we will have to get a Technician out or not. The Czech game on BBC One we could record to BBC One but the Ghana game being an interactive option we could not. Tonight the BBC will adequately present two World Cup matches Japan v Brazil on BBC One and Croatia v Australia on BBC Three. Couldn't the BBC in these exceptional cases start transmitting BBC Three or Four at 15.00 Hours to avoid all the above nonsense ? And allowing us the safeguard of a PVR copy of both ?

[geekpie]

Lots of girls seem to like Ashley Cole (including one from Girls Aloud for Chrissake) but I really can't see what Ashley Cole brings to the team. He can't tackle or head, he's not particularly fast and he often passes to players under more pressure than he is. When he very occasionally runs at players he normally falls over. He slows the game down where England benefit from a fast game. His attitude is bad: frequently calls the ref a ****ing ***ker which the whole world sees and thinks "That's the English".

[fahimeh]

HI