The World Cup in Qatar this fall was a success for TV: six out of ten French people followed at least one match, which boosted advertising revenue for the channels, according to an Arcom study published on Monday. The course of the France team, defeat in the final on penalties by Argentina, “generated larger audiences” than the 2018 edition, which it had won, notes the audiovisual regulator.
These data are of “particular interest,” says Arcom. Indeed, this World Cup was “disputed for the first time at the end of autumn for climatic reasons”, and its organization in Qatar had aroused “calls for a boycott”. From November 20 to December 18, 59% of French people watched or listened to at least one match live, and 8% in replay. These figures come from an online survey conducted in January by Ifop for this study, on a sample of 2,102 French people over 15 years old. A quarter (27%) of respondents said they had followed absolutely nothing from the World Cup, neither matches, nor summaries, nor reports. But it is above all out of “disinterest in competition” (78% of these respondents), much more than a desire to boycott (17% of these “non-consumers”, or 5% of the French).
All this was beneficial to the channels which broadcast the competition, the free TF1 (28 matches including all those of the Blues) and the pay beIN Sports (all the matches). The Mondial enabled TF1 “to reach audience levels well above the average audience it usually achieves”, with, for example, an average audience share of 22.7% on the 4 p.m.-7 p.m. November-December 2022, compared to 15.8% in 2021. This had “a clearly positive effect (…) in terms of advertising revenue”. “TF1 alone totals 151.1 million euros in gross receipts across all of the competition (excluding sponsorships and digital), an increase of 37% compared to 2018 (110.5 million euros gross)” , according to the study, which relies on data provided by analyst Kantar.
Finally, the seven matches of the Blues were more followed than in 2018, with 15.7 million viewers on average against 13.7 million, according to figures from Médiamétrie cited by the study. As announced in December, the final even set a “historic audience record” for French TV (24.1 million people on TF1). An observation to put into perspective: Médiamétrie took into account the audience achieved in bars or hotels, which was not the case for the previous World Cups.
