Media update: World Cup ratings edition

[Beach Soccer]

This is from AP

July 30, 2002
NEW YORK (AP) -- The World Cup was seen on television by a combined 1.5 billion viewers in 18 countries measured by Nielsen Media Research.
Thailand had a combined total of 269 million, most among the 18 nations included by Nielsen, the company said Tuesday, followed by co-host South Korea (266 million) and China (263 million).
The United States was sixth at 85 million, but that figure included only English-language viewers on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. An additional 80 million Spanish-language watched on Univision and Telefutura.
South Korea had the highest rating at 16, followed by Malaysia and Singapore at 12. The rating is the percentage of television households tuned to a broadcast.
The only European nations included were Sweden (44 million viewers/8 rating), Finland (19 million/7) and Ireland (12 million/6). No South Americans countries were included.

Brazil's 2-0 victory over Germany in the final on June 30 was viewed by 63 million in the 18 nations.
FIFA, soccer's governing body, estimated that the 1998 tournament was watched by a cumulative 37 billion worldwide, including 1.5 billion for host France's win over Brazil in the final.


FiFa says 1.5 billion watched 98 final

Nielson says 63 million watched the 2002 final.



Even for just 18 countries these seems low. Does Nielson provide an estimate on worldwide viewer ship?
Both my newspapers don’t mention Nielson counted only 18 countries, making it look like it’s a world viewer ship number. How many people did Neilson say watch the last super bowl? What numbers did they give for the Atlanta/Utah/Australian Olympics? Is any news agency, any soccer organization challenging these numbers?

If you have a link to a soccer page or any page that breaks down these numbers please post the link.

Please post how your newpaper or news webpage reports this news.



http://216.40.241.68/cwm/kodama/05.gif

[Eric B]

Originally posted by Beach Soccer
Does Nielson provide an estimate on worldwide viewer ship?

No. Nielsen is only mentioning numbers for countries where they do business. They do business in neither South America nor Europe, which can explain the numbers. The one article I saw did mention this, but I remember reading during the WC itself that didn't make it clear until the end that they (Nielsen) doesn't really cover much of the world outside the US.

[Thunderpac]

The population of Europe is somewhere around 730 million. If you look at the three European countries, Sweden's viewership totalled 500% of its population, while Finland was at 360% and Ireland 320%. If you extrapolate those numbers to the entirety of Europe, you could guess that Europe had a total viewership between 2.3 billion (320%) and 3.6 billion (500%), give or take.

Since the article didn't list the 18 countries, it is not possible to extrapolate the 1.5 billion viewers in 18 countries figure to the entire world. If you just guessed an average viewership total of 300% of the population for every country in the world, you would come up with 18 billion. Who knows. The biggest ratings would probably come from South America and Europe, but the time difference probably hurt their ratings.

I'm more curious about the USA figure. 165 million viewers is incredible given the time zone difference.

[Andy_B]

I'm more curious about the USA figure. 165 million viewers is incredible given the time zone difference.

Obviously this is not 165 million "different" viewers.

A better number to look at is an average of about 2.5 million people watched each game.

[CrazyF.C.]

thailand? wtf? man, soccer really is more popular worldwide than any of us can imagine.