23 European television channels showed 160 hours of coverage of the 28th European Athletics Indoor Championships which took place in Madrid, Spain, on 4-6 March 2005. The coverage was watched by 80 million viewers across Europe.
Viewers in Greece, Italy, Russia, Finland and Cyprus were all able to enjoy over ten hours of live coverage from the event. Nearly two million viewers watched the coverage on ERT in Greece on Saturday evening when they saw Greek athletes take Silver and Bronze medals in the women’s 60m. Russian channel RTR Sport broadcast a total of 17 and a half hours of action, of which ten hours were live.
An average of over 1.3 million viewers across Europe enjoyed 12 hours of live Eurosport coverage over the three days of the Championships, over 30% more viewers than watched last year’s World Indoor Championships in Budapest and higher than the figure for the 2002 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Vienna.
Host broadcaster TVE showed eight and a half hours of the event live in Spain. An average of 1.2 million people, an audience share of 9.7%, watched the coverage on Sunday evening when Spain won its only Gold medal in the men’s long jump, with over 7 million people tuning in at some point during the transmission.
In the UK, the BBC broadcast over five hours of live action with a peak of 2.1 million viewers and a peak audience share of 11%. The average audience across the BBC’s five hours of coverage was 1.5 million, 0.4 million more than during the last European Athletics Indoor Championships in Vienna in 2002.
In Sweden, whose athletes won three Gold medals, SVT showed seven and a half hours of action with a peak audience of 1.6 million and an average audience share of over 40%.
In the Czech Republic, where Czech Television showed nine and a half hours of live coverage, an audience share of 20% watched Sunday evening’s coverage which included Czech Roman Sebrle winning Gold in the men’s heptathlon.
Polish station TVP’s five hours of live coverage attracted an average audience of 3.2 million and an average audience share of 25%.
In France, over 2 million viewers watched coverage of the Championships on Saturday afternoon and over two million viewers also watched the highlights broadcast by ARD and ZDF in Germany. NOS in The Netherlands broadcast daily highlights of the Championships which were watched by an average audience share of 25%.
In addition nine non-European channels – Fox Australia, SKY New Zealand, ESPN Star Asia, TBS Japan, DD Sports India, Vietnam TV, Dubai Sports Channel, Carribean TV and US network – broadcast a 55 minute highlights package from the Championships.
Emily Lewis
Communication Manager
European Athletic Association
Avenue Louis-Ruchonnet 18
CH-1003 Lausanne
Tel: +41 21 313 4357
Mobile: +41 79 694 4829
Email: emily.lewis@european-athletics.org