Commercial broadcaster RTL attracted a peak audience of 1.6 million viewers in Croatia as the Balkan country’s national handball team lost out to Spain in the final of the men’s European Handball Championships.
The European Handball Federation said that Sunday afternoon’s final was watched by an average of 1.4 million viewers on RTL, representing a market share of 75 per cent.
Spain’s 22-20 win was watched by an average of 434,000 viewers on Teledeporte, the free-to-air digital terrestrial channel of Spanish public broadcaster RTVE.
Teledeporte’s audience was equal to a viewing share of 3.3 per cent. An average of 563,000 viewers (a 4.3-per-cent share) watched the post-match programme on Teledeporte.
Croatia’s semi-final win over Norway attracted a 65-per-cent market share, the EHF said.
Earlier in the tournament, Croatia’s comeback win over Germany was watched by an average of 6.4 million viewers (a 20.7-per-cent share) on German public broadcaster ZDF.
A total of 1 million fans accessed coverage of the tournament on the official ehfTV streaming platform, with almost 500,000 viewers watching live coverage.
On the digital audience for the tournament, the EHF said: “The EHF Euro social media channels saw a growth of 27 per cent across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with video views totalling 12 million across December and January.
“Croatia’s success again played a big part. Zeljko Musa’s dramatic winning goal in extra-time of the semi-final against Norway reached 2.3 million people on EHF Euro channels with over 600,000 interactions alone on the EHF Euro Facebook page.”
The official tournament app was downloaded by 125,000 fans.
Media rights to the tournament were sold to over 85 broadcasters worldwide and various production innovations were put in place.
The tournament, which was held in Austria, Norway and Sweden and attracted a record attendance of close to 500,000 fans, took place from January 9 to 26.