07 Dec 2011
Rowing Attracts Record Number of Television Viewers
A record number of television viewers has been recorded for the 2001 World Rowing Championships held in Lucerne, Switzerland in August.
The summary for European television shows that over 44 million people tuned in to 16 different European television channels to watch the World Championships racing. Total television coverage, for the four days of televised racing is estimated at over 47 hours.
The pan European television station Eurosport aired 517 minutes, 400 minutes “live”, of the World Rowing Championships that was watched by over 5.7 million viewers. The Sunday finals attracted an average of nearly 2 million viewers during its 78 minutes of live transmission.
“The extremely positive point is that the audience figures for the coverage of the Sunday finals is one of our 30 highest for 2001” said Vincent le Goff of the programming department at Europsort.
“It is by far the Olympic sport that has had the best results on Eurosport outside of the Olympic Games ” he said.
In Germany, ZDF alone counted over 14.4 million viewers during the 51 minutes of total coverage that the World Championships received which, at moments, represented up to 22% of the total market share. Their live coverage on the Saturday attracted 19.9% market share for the 21 minutes of live coverage.
The BBC (Great Britain), which broadcast a total of 170 minutes live over the two days of finals, counted 5.5 million viewers. The Saturday races attracted a 20% market share.
The Dutch television station NOS attracted over 8.4 million viewers for a total of 97.40 minutes of coverage.
In Croatia, where the HRT broadcast a total of 300 minutes, the best market share for the 2001 World Rowing Championships reached 40%.
The next televised FISA events are the 2002 Zurich Rowing World Cup regattas and the 2002 FISA World Rowing Championships to be held in Seville, Spain from 15th to 22nd September.