Upturn in Six Nations Rugby TV Audiences

The first year with the entire RBS Six Nations Championship on BBC television has seen average audiences per match increase by 63% (1.2 million per game) on last year. The average audiences for BBC matches are up by 40%, which is a 0.9 million increase on last year (i.e excluding matches shown by Sky in 2002).

This represents a reversal in the decline of television audiences to the Championship, which had seen audiences fall by 40% between 1999 and 2002.

This year on the BBC, twelve out of the 15 games attracted peak audiences of more than three million, compared with only three of the fifteen matches last year. All figures are based on live overnight data supplied to all broadcasters by BARB.

More than half of all people watching television across the UK (51% share) watched the Ireland v England Grand Slam decider on Sunday, which achieved a peak viewing figure of 5.6million. The average audience was five million. The share was higher than England’s previous three Grand Slam matches – against Ireland in 2001 (41% of all people watching TV at that time), Scotland in 2000 ( 43%) and against Wales in 1999 (28%).

The highest rating game of the Championship was Wales v England with a 5.30pm Saturday kick-off, which had an average audience of 6.3 million and a peak of 6.7 million. This would have put it in the Top Ten non-football sporting events of 2002 in terms of audience.

Director of BBC Sport, Peter Salmon said: ‘When we won the contract back, we promised to try and stop the decline in audiences and help grow the tournament by attracting more people to the game. I’m delighted that we have made a strong start. We have worked closely with the Six Nations on scheduling the tournament and these figures vindicate the success of that approach.

For more details contact:

Caroline Inman
BBC Sport Publicity
020 8576 7789 or mobile 07764 335434