M6, RAI profit from soccer clash
Viewers rally to Italy vs. France match
That’s even though France lost 2-0, and exited early from the European soccer tournament.
Broadcast 8.45 p.m.-10.30 p.m., France vs. Italy’s slugout notched up 13.2 million viewers and a 47.8% audience share.
That’s the highest-ever viewership for M6 since the launch of audience statistics company Mediamat, way back in 1989.
Aud’s also a year-to-date primetime record for France.
In victorious Italy, the key qualifier against Gaul scored a whopping 75% audience share with more than 24 million Italos glued to pubcaster RAI’s flagship RAI-1 station.
While this figure reps a 2008 ratings record for Italian TV in general, the stellar draw was below the 84% share scored by RAI-1 during the 2006 Italy vs. France World Cup final, which crowned Italy world champ.
Ratings come after German pubcaster ARD scored a new Euro 2008 ratings record Monday for Germany-Austria, which netted 28 million viewers and a 76.9 million share.
Not that records mean profits.
Sharing rights with rival terrestrial web TF1, M6 paid a reported Euros50 million ($77.55 million) for rights. According to analysts, it will lose around $31 million on the rights purchase, and faces transmission costs of around $9.3 million.
In Spain, newbie net Cuatro also scored impressively for Saturday’s Spain vs. Sweden first round qualifier.
Match was viewed by 7.3 million (58.4%), Cuatro’s best ratings since the 2006 World Cup.
Spain’s Euro 2008 soccer figures pale before the World Cup, which saw 12.2 million viewers, shared by Cuatro and rival web La Sexta, watch the 2006 World Cup quarter final face-off between Spain and France.
However, Euro 2008 auds in Spain have been dented by early match times — starting at 6.00 p.m. in a country with late work hours — and the championship’s Euro focus, which doesn’t engage Spain’s large Latin American and Maghrebi immigrant demos.
Based on ad income, unless Spain goes all the way to the final, the Sogecable-owned Cuatro will probably also take a hit from buying Euro 2008 rights, which it shares with Sogecable satcaster Digital Plus. Sogecable paid a reported $108.6 million for Euro 2008 rights.
Cuatro’s aim is not just immediate profits, however. In 2006, the World Cup helped draw auds to the broadcaster, raising share to 6.8% in August 2006, up from 6.2% in May, the months before and after the World Cup. Cuatro retained share thereafter.
Nick Vivarelli contributed to this report.
