Cup Runneth Over For B'casters

With soccer fans still recovering from either disappointment or victory-party hangovers after Sunday's dramatic finale to the 2006 FIFA World Cup, international broadcasters and advertisers are yelling the corporate equivalent of "Gooooal!"

Ratings figures for the World Cup broke records in several territories and, according to local British media reports, ad revenue topped $1 billion in the monthlong soccer tournament for the first time.

A total of 26 million of the 58 million Italians tuned in to watch their team beat France on penalty kicks to give Italy its fourth World Cup trophy. With an 87% market share, the game — which aired on pubcaster Raiuno and cabler Sky — was the most-watched TV event in Italian history.

More than 22 million of the 60 million French were glued to their sets for the match, a 80.3% market share for public broadcaster TF1.

In the U.S., nearly 12 million viewers tuned in to the coverage of the finals on ABC, shy of the record 14.5 million viewers set in 1994 when the event was held in the U.S. Sunday's game pulled in 5 million viewers on Spanish-language broadcaster Univision.

Host country Germany didn't have a personal stake in the outcome, but 25.9 million of the 82 million Germans, a 72.3% market share, watched the World Cup final on ARD, the channel's best-ever result. The prize for largest audience this tournament, however, went to pubcaster partner ZDF, which aired the Germany-Italy semifinal match to 29.7 million viewers, a new German record.

In the U.K., population 60 million, the Italy-France match handed the BBC its best-ever non-British sports rating, as 17 million — or 60.8% of the viewing audience — tuned in.

The ratings peak for the BBC this World Cup came during England's penalty shootout heartbreak against Portugal. Nineteen million English fans and 84% of the English viewing audience watched their team lose the quarterfinal match.

That soccer's biggest tournament has gone worldwide was evidenced by ratings figures outside Europe, where matches often aired in the early morning or middle of the night.

In futbol-crazed Mexico, Televisa, the nation's top broadcaster, scored an 18.2% rating and a 38.2% share for the championship game. TV Azteca, the No. 2 network, captured a 13.9% rating and a 29.2% share, according to media research institute IBOPE. Mexico's population is 107 million.

Televisa said it aired a total of 287 hours in matches and soccer-related programming. Televisa's Sky Mexico, the nation's only satcaster, carried all 64 matches on an exclusive basis, driving up subscription rates. Before the tournament, Televisa, which controls about 70% of Mexico's broadcaster television market, said it expected to rake in about $75 million in ad revenue from World Cup transmissions.

Brazil's team was knocked out in the quarterfinals by France, but World Cup matches still drew impressive ratings there. The two opening matches featuring the home team attracted 60.5 million and 54.5 million viewers, respectively, for a 90% market share among the 188 million Brazilians.

It was a similar story in Argentina, population 39.9 million, where more than 17 million watched their team go down in penalties to Germany in the quarterfinals — an astounding 95% market share.

Australia's strong showing, reaching the round of 16 after a 32-year absence from the tournament, translated to near-record ratings and millions of bleary eyes among the 20 million residents.

SBS, Australia's smallest free-to-air TV network, achieved its largest tournament audiences during the Aussie team's loss to eventual champions Italy, getting 2.3 million viewers and a 93% share across the five capital cities for a match that started at 2 a.m. local time.

China, despite not qualifying for the tournament, still tuned in. State broadcaster CCTV-5 recorded an audience of 62.9 million, or a 22.3% market share, for the England-Paraguay opening-round match. That's more than the combined populations of England and Paraguay. China's population is 1.3 billion.

Piracy and illegal betting were two of the issues authorities had to deal with in Hong Kong over the past month of matches. Broadcasting rights to all 64 games were held by pay-TV provider Cable TV, but the broadcaster had to contend with bars and restaurants openly broadcasting matches to the public for free.

About 40,000 households in Hong Kong were estimated to have watched the matches online for free on soccer sites operating from mainland China. The sites were streaming live matches from the state-run CCTV stations. This also was the first time Hong Kongers were able to bet legally on the World Cup; almost 200 illegal bookmakers have been arrested during the past month.

In soccer-mad South Korea, population 48 million, the top match was France's opening-round victory over Korea, which saw 11.2 million Koreans — 24.9% of the audience — stay up until 4 a.m. to catch the game.

Japanese fans were less enthusiastic as a seven-hour time difference combined with a poor showing by the Japanese team translated into weaker ratings. The final attracted just 2.6 million viewers, or 15.7% of the Japanese audience. Japan's population is 127 million.

The U.S.' disappointing early exit from the tournament didn't stop the World Cup from scoring its best-ever audience among the 298 million Americans.

According to Reuters, an average of 2.6 million viewers tuned in, a 65% jump on the 2002 tournament. Spanish-language broadcaster Univision said its ratings tripled from the previous World Cup, with the Mexico-Iran match watched by 5.4 million households, making it the most-watched sporting event in Spanish-language television history.

Mimi Turner in London, Charles Masters in Paris, Eric J. Lyman in Rome, Julian Ryall in Tokyo, John Hecht in Mexico City, Winnie Chung in Hong Kong and Paul J. Gough in New York contributed to this report.

Viewing figures courtesy of Auditel, Mediametrie, Infront, the BBC, ARD/ZDF and Univison.