Around 3.4m Irish viewers tuned into watch the Rugby World Cup in France, according to figures published jointly by RTÉ and Virgin Media Television which shared the broadcasting rights for the tournament.
Even though Ireland exited the tournament at the quarter final stage, the viewership figures augur well for any future rights sharing collaborations between the two broadcasters.
Not surprisingly, the most watched match was Ireland’s quarter final defeat at the hands of the All Blacks with 1.378m viewers tuning in to watch the match live on Virgin Media One, giving it a whopping 78% of viewers, the biggest TV audience of the year. Virgin Media also reported 293,000 live streams of the match.
The second most-watched match of the tournament, from an Irish perspective, was Ireland’s nail-biting win over South Africa which was shown on RTÉ2. The match attracted 1.22m viewers and RTÉ has reported 240,000 live streams.
The other big match that broke the 1m mark was Ireland’s win over Scotland which was broadcast live on Virgin Media One, attracting 1.19m viewers while the broadcaster has reported 152,000 live streams.
The final between South Africa and the All Blacks, drew an audience of 683,000 on RTÉ2 with 115,000 live streams.
