Rugby World Cup 2019 Final viewership figures

The TV viewership figures of the Rugby World Cup 2019, South Africa VS England are in. Margie Knap, Client Lead at Meta Media, examines top-line figures and a view of how everyone viewed this historical clash of the Rugby Titans.

At least 48% of all TV viewing Adults 15+ were glued to their screens during the 2-hour broadcast, and their kids also tuned in. Thank goodness SABC2 negotiated that they could screen this major event of national interest as evidenced In the image below, it is clear that the TVRs delivered on SABC2! No gender filters included (women also watch rugby!).

It is important to note that these figures do not take into account the screenings at Rugby Club Villages (such as Monte), pubs, clubs and other group viewing venues. It is possible that we can add on, at the very least, an additional 50%. Just Googling some images of the game and it is easy to get a sense of excitement at all of the out of home viewings.

Taking a look at TVRs achieved across the two stations across four different demographics, it is really exciting just how ‘nation building’ this final match was. TVRs achieved against LSM 4-7 sit at 9.7 on a Saturday morning, bearing in mind that there are omnibus repeats of favourite soapies on SABC1 at this time too.

And boy, were we glued to our screens!! If you look at the ebb and flow of audiences every two minutes, people didn’t even make coffee/tea or even go to the toilet during the commercial breaks! The SABC2 LSM 8-10 audience started at just over 1 million viewers and peaked at 1.6 million viewers by 1PM. Supersport 1 LSM 8-10 audiences started at just over 700k and peaked at 915k as the game ended.

Remember the point above regarding the SABC1 broadcast of Generations Omnibus: Generations viewership peaked at 1,128,000 at 12:41 – the victory was already ours.

We also found it interesting to have a look at the advertisers that flighted their adverts during the game. There were 13 “paid for” ads on SABC2 and 16 “paid for” ads on SuperSport 1, all achieving impressive ratings.

In a press release from DStv, the DStv Now App served more than 500,000 unique users during match day. In fact, the data carried by content delivery network partners during the Final peaked at more than 500 Gbps (more than 4,000 GB of data PER minute) – this is another record for DStv Now in Africa.

Finally, even the Google Doodle got involved in the hype and excitement.