Argentina vs France most watched match with 22 million viewers
Mumbai: The 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia continues its strong run for football viewership in India in its fourth week. FIFA has progress through the knockout stages. The tournament that is being telecast live on SONY TEN 2, SONY TEN 3 and SONY ESPN channels and live streamed on SonyLIV app & website, garnered over 192 million viewers across 58 matches played until Week 4 of the tournament.
Reports unveil that 150.7 million viewers watched the World Cup on TV and over 42 million viewers live streamed it on SonyLIV app and website
The total cumulative reach of the tournament on Sony network is 192.7 million viewers. (BARC, All India, CS2+, LIVE matches + wraparound shows + highlights + repeats + surround programming of FIFA World Cup, SPN Sports Network, SonyLIV)
The 58 live matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia has been watched by 96.7 million viewers across India on the sports channels of Sony Pictures Networks. The 8-pre-quarter final and 2 quarter final matches telecast in Week 4 have been watched by 57.1 million viewers (BARC, All India, CS2+, LIVE matches, SPN Sports Network)
The France vs Argentina pre-quarter final has been the most watched game in the tournament till date with 22.2 million viewers tuning in to watch the game.
There were three other matches which were sampled by more than 20 million viewers – Brazil vs Mexico, Uruguay vs France and Spain vs Russia (BARC, All India, CS2+, SPN Sports Network)
Rural markets across India have contributed 42% of the overall TV reach of the television coverage of 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia which makes 63.1 million viewers from rural markets. (BARC, All India Rural, CS2+, LIVE matches+wraparound shows+highlights+repeats+surround programming of FIFA World Cup, SPN Sports Network)
20.4 mn viewers from West Bengal have sampled the live matches, which becomes the top market for the FIFA viewership. Kerala contributes about 16.9 million viewers, followed by Maharashtra/ Goa markets that amount to 10.5 mn viewers sampling the live matches . 10.1 mn viewers from North East have sampled the live matches.
Local language feeds (Hindi+Malayalam+Bengali+Tamil+Telugu) have contributed to 47% of the overall viewership.(BARC, All India, CS2+, LIVE matches with local language feed, SPN Sports Network)
Sony Network’s regional commentary has been well received, with 9.0 million viewers in Kerala sampling Malayalam commentary and 9.2 million viewers in West Bengal sampling Bengali commentary.
Regional commentary feed has been sampled by 36.3 million viewers across India. (BARC, All India, CS2+, LIVE matches, Sony ESPN
