Spain’s emphatic 4-0 victory over Italy in the final of Uefa Euro 2012 on Sunday broke one television audience record in Spain but failed to deliver the spectacular viewing figures of the midweek semi-final matches in the two competing countries.
In Spain, commercial broadcaster Telecinco drew a record audience over 90 minutes of 15.481 million – equivalent to an 83.4 per cent share, according to television audience consultancy Barlovento Comunicacion, which cited Kantar’s figures.
However, this represented a drop of 15 per cent from the average of 18.14 million viewers – equivalent to an 83.3-per-cent audience share – that watched Spain overcome Portugal on penalties in Wednesday’s first semi-final. For the first 90 minutes Spain-Portugal had an average audience of 14.18 million viewers, down eight per cent on the final.
The final had a peak audience of 17.899 million shortly after Fernando Torres scored the third goal at 10.32pm local time in Spain, which represented a record share of 90 per cent. In Wednesday’s semi-final a peak of 19.09 million viewers, an 87.3-per-cent audience share, watched Cesc Fabregas score the winning penalty in the shoot-out at 11.26pm local time in Spain – the largest one-minute audience in Spain’s history.
In Italy, state broadcaster Rai drew an average audience of 22.47 million, an 81.66-per-cent audience share. The audience fell short of the average audience of 23.255 million – equivalent to a 79.55-per-cent share – that watched the Italy-Germany semi-final on Thursday but the share was up marginally. The final had a peak audience of 23.692 million viewers at 9.27pm local time.