Over two million people tuned into last night's Socceroos versus Iraq FIFA World Cup Asian qualifier, making it the highest-rating program so far this year for both SBS and Foxtel. The game was also the third top-rating program ever in Foxtel's 18-year history.
The game, which saw Socceroos trump Iraq with a 1-0 victory, attracted 1.5 million viewers on SBS One nationally. The metro and regional audiences were 1.1 million and 406,000 respectively. It was the highest-rating program on the free-to-air network for the year so far, and also the top Socceroos match SBS since it acquired the rights for the game at the end of last year. The audience was also significantly higher than last week's match against Jordan which attracted an average national audience of one million.
SBS' coverage was the fifth most watch program on free-to-air. It was beaten only by Nine News (1) and Seven News (2) and reality renovation programs, House Rules (3) and The Block (4). Its pre-match game, also on SBS One, had 629,000 metro viewers.
SBS will broadcast the 2014 FIFA World Cup live and exclusive from Brazil from 13 June to 14 July 2014.
On Foxtel, last night's qualifier had an average audience of 549,000 viewers. It was the third most-watched program for the subscription TV company so far this year. It was also the third highest-rating program in Foxtel's history, the first two were 2011 Rugby World Cup matches which averaged 734,000 and 649,000 viewers respectively.
Meanwhile, the Brumbie versus Lions game, which also aired last night on Fox Sports 2, garnered an average audience of 82,000. The game was part of the current British and Irish Lions tour.
Other programs in the top 20 FTA broadcast were Packed to the Rafters (Seven), Today Tonight (Seven), A Current Affair (Nine) and MasterChef (Ten). MasterChef attracted 679,000 viewers.
Across the main channels, Seven won the night with an audience share of 21.4%, followed by Nine with 18.4%, Ten with 14.5%, SBS with 14% and the ABC had 10.3%
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