SerpApi.Org
There was delight – and no little relief – at the BBC after the television ratings for the World Cup final came through.
The corporation had boosted its share of the audience for a major international football final in the first tournament since Gary Lineker left, with more than 80 per cent of the 19.6 million people who watched Sunday’s showpiece tuning into its coverage.
As well as appearing to vindicate the decision to jettison Lineker, the ratings demonstrated the value of being present in the flesh at a major event, with the BBC sending presenter Gabby Logan and pundits Wayne Rooney, Joe Hart and Micah Richards to the MetLife Stadium, while ITV bizarrely kept its own top team at its studio in Brooklyn. Nothing summed up the corporation’s late triumph better than when Rooney stole the World Cup show by calling the half-time musical interlude “crap”.
Before that, it felt as if BBC had completely hamstrung itself with its “work-from-home” World Cup and refusal to fly its biggest stars to the US until the semis, particularly when comparing its coverage to that of its arch-rival.
Its build-up to the tournament was dominated by December’s news that its studio would not be in New York, Los Angeles or Miami, but Salford and that its presenters and pundits would not fly out until the final week. Lineker poured salt on the wound in April, saying he was happy his sacking by the corporation had freed him to spend the tournament in New York rather than “in Salford in a green box”.
Logan later responded by pointing out that the BBC won a Bafta for its coverage of last year’s European Women’s Championship final following a similar approach to that tournament.
Telegraph Sport attended the grand unveiling of the new studio two days before the World Cup began and it proved to be anything but a “green box”. Instead, it featured a panoramic LED screen that created the illusion that the studio overlooked whichever of the 16 host cities a match was being broadcast from.
Alex Kay-Jelski, the BBC’s director of sport, said not building a studio in the US had saved licence-fee-payers millions of pounds. It took ITV barely 24 hours to show up its rivals after unveiling its jaw-dropping rooftop studio overlooking New York before England’s final warm-up friendly against Costa Rica. “You are thinking it must be AI,” Mark Pougatch, the presenter, said. “I promise you it is real.”
The comparison became starker upon the BBC’s own studio making its television debut two days later, with the images shown on its LED screen looking far more artificial than they had in person. Telegraph Sport was also told ITV did not believe it would have saved “millions” by basing its own studio in the UK.
The venue became the scene of some of the tournament’s most memorable moments, most notably when Lineker made a mischievous presenting cameo at the start of ITV’s coverage of Germany’s win against Ivory Coast. How that went down back in Salford, goodness only knows.
Then there was Emma Hayes being stuck in a “kitchen” with a chalkboard to provide analysis of England’s opening match against Croatia, a decision that triggered days of misogynistic abuse towards her. It culminated in Hayes wearing a shirt with the feminist slogan “She will change the world” in a subsequent appearance.
ITV was also lampooned after the opening between Mexico and South Africa when, during its post-match show, Semra Hunter, the presenter, bizarrely mistook Graham Potter for Sir Gareth Southgate. There were even more surreal scenes days later when Wyclef Jean, the Grammy Award-winning musician, sat on the armrest of Karen Carney’s chair during coverage of the 1-1 draw between Uruguay and Saudi Arabia.
It felt like it was all happening on ITV, which delivered the tournament’s funniest punchline when Duncan Ferguson weighed in on a discussion about how abstaining from alcohol could help players avoid injury and prolong their careers. “I think I’m right in saying James Milner never drank,” Pougatch said, to which Ferguson replied: “I’ve had 10 operations!”
Cue peals of laughter from Pougatch and Roy Keane, Gary Neville and Ian Wright. Indeed, the supporting cast for ITV’s main pundits put those on the BBC in the shade, with Patrick Vieira bringing more stardust, Ange Postecoglou’s charisma shining through, and Hayes showing she remained a peerless coaching analyst even when marooned in a “kitchen”. Brooklyn was certainly a more attractive proposition for the big names than Salford.
ITV was also winning the battle of the ex-referees, with Christina Unkel clear and firm in her contributions compared to the far more equivocal Darren Cann.
Little memorable was happening back in sleepy Salford, beyond someone pushing a button to display interminable QR code reminders about paying their licence fee. The BBC was instead reliant on moments from its commentary and reporting crews. Danny Murphy went viral following his Alan Partridge-esque mention of his cat, Bob, when Oscar Bobb came on for Norway against Ivory Coast.
It was also fortunate when Harry Kane squeaked his way through an interview with Kelly Somers after losing his voice singing Wonderwall following England’s last-16 win in Mexico, with a clip of the incident going viral. Rooney, Hart and Richards were in stitches back in Salford, but it only emphasised how far away they were. As did Lineker’s video-bombing of Richards during the BBC’s Norway vs England reaction show.
Interpreting ratings is far from an exact science, but ITV did dominate them up until the semi-finals. That was helped by picking the opening match of the tournament between Mexico and South Africa (7.7 million viewers) and England’s first game against Croatia (16.4 million). The BBC was unable to match the latter figure when it showed the second fixture between Thomas Tuchel’s side and Ghana (15.4 million). ITV also drew 13.8 million viewers for England’s final group match against Panama.
But the BBC had first pick in all but one of the knockout matches and its gamble that Tuchel’s men would progress paid off. England’s last-32 game against the Democratic Republic of Congo attracted 16.3 million viewers, and the 2am last-16 clash with Mexico was watched by 9.1 million. The corporation proclaimed the match the most-watched overnight UK broadcast ever, effectively asserting more people tuned in than watched Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon.
ITV had 18 million viewers for England’s quarter-final against Norway but that was trumped by their semi-final with Argentina, when the BBC’s TV presenters and pundits finally arrived in the US.
Fronted by Mark Chapman, there was an immediate jump in the quality of a programme that came exclusively from Atlanta, which was watched on the BBC by 24 million people – the biggest audience for any programme on TV this year. Somers, better known for her warm and relaxed style than steely-eyed interrogations, delivered a grilling of Tuchel of which ITV’s Gabriel Clarke would have been proud. The BBC also had the third-place play-off, which attracted 11.8 million viewers for the 6-4 win for England against France.
Then came Sunday’s final, at which Richards had some fun by saying he rued being unable to have witnessed more of the atmosphere created by supporters. “There are not that many fans in Salford!” Logan responded: “You can’t say the S-word again.” That was followed by Rooney’s appearance, one that demonstrated that what he still lacks in fluency, he is starting to make up for in sound bites. His withering critique of a half-time show he witnessed in the flesh also made ITV’s decision to have Laura Woods, Karen Carney and Hayes at the MetLife Stadium on Sunday instead of Pougatch, Keane, Neville and Wright all the more baffling.
The BBC’s only misstep was broadcasting a self-promotional advert after a half-time show about which Rooney summed up what much of the nation felt. The final was the only time it went head-to-head with ITV and it was telling that 15.8 million people watched it on BBC One and iPlayer and just 3.8 million did so on ITV1 and ITVX. At the last European Championship, Lineker’s final major tournament for the BBC, ITV enjoyed a record audience share of 26 per cent, a figure that had steadily increased across previous World Cups and Euros. Pougatch, Keane, Neville and Wright were all tellingly in the stadium for the Euro 2024 final.
No one wants to see the BBC waste licence-fee payers’ money but basing itself in Salford for almost the entirety of an event certain to deliver its biggest ratings of the year felt like a poor use of its wider budget beyond sport. Given that it had chosen to show only one England group game and up to five of their knockout matches, it did not need to fly out its top team until halfway through the tournament and the country’s game against the Democratic Republic of Congo. If Tuchel’s men had been knocked out early, it could even have sent people home until the final.
Upon the BBC announcing its ratings for the final, Kay-Jelski said: “This has been a World Cup we’ll never forget, and that’s entirely down to the millions of people who chose to experience it with the BBC.
“Our ambition was to be there for audiences every step of the way, not just during the matches, but every hour in between. We wanted to tell the stories behind the tournament, bring fans closer to the biggest moments and innovate in ways that made the experience richer than ever before.
“The response has been extraordinary, and we’re incredibly grateful that so many people made the BBC part of their World Cup.”
With Euro 2028 taking place in the UK, the BBC will not face the same problem for the next major tournament on the horizon. Whether this summer has set a blueprint for the next World Cup, and beyond, remains to be seen.
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