World Cup final scores for ABC, Univision

By Paul J. Gough

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - The down-to-the-wire World Cup final
was a hit on this side of the Atlantic too, with both ABC and Univision
reporting strong viewership Sunday.

Almost 12 million people watched on ABC as Italy beat France in a 3
1/2-hour game that featured double overtime and a round of penalty
kicks, according to preliminary data released late on Monday by Nielsen
Media Research. Final numbers won't be in until Thursday.

Ian J. Ball...

HA! TAKE THAT, SOCCER HATERS! (e.g. David!)!!1!

That's a huge win for ABC, which said it was the third-highest-rated
men's soccer game and the third-most watched since 1994. The record is
still the 14.5 million viewers for Brazil's defeat of Italy in the 1994
World Cup. It beat the 2002 final handily; 3.9 million people tuned in
to see Brazil beat Germany, 5-0.

Sunday's game averaged 5 million viewers for Univision. That's up 75
percent compared with the 2002 Brazil-Germany game. It's also up 16
percent compared with 1998's final, when France beat Brazil 3-0.

Univision and its sister network, Telefutura, got monster ratings for
this year's World Cup and through the semifinals had outdelivered
English-speaking coverage on ESPN and ABC. Univision's average
viewership for the entire Cup was 2.3 million viewers, up 136 percent
from 2002 and up 81 percent from 1998. It received similar bumps in
every major demographic. Telefutura averaged 472,000 viewers for the
games it aired, up 62 percent compared with the ones it televised in
2002.

And Univision said that 50 million people tuned in to some part of its
coverage, including 29 million Hispanics and 21 million non-Hispanics.

ABC averaged 3.8 million viewers up to Sunday's game, compared to 1.7
million in 2002. ESPN's 20 games averaged 2.3 million viewers up 76
percent from the 1.3 million who tuned in 2002.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter