^{Fans watching the World Cup in Toronto are televised on the giant screen outside of the Broadcast Centre. Photo credit: Tratohecho1a on Flickr}

The World Cup drew record audience for the CBC, more than doubling the audience from the tournament in 2006 and reaching 28 million Canadians.

The final alone drew almost 6 million viewers many of them non-traditional CBC viewers.

“The FIFA World Cup has helped CBC reach out and engage with communities who often feel that they’re not represented on the network. This month was different,” Kirstine Stewart, the general manager of CBC Television said.

As Trevor Pilling, executive producer for CBC Sports said, “This is the whole corporation’s event – not just CBC Sports. We’re fortunate to have a property like FIFA because we have the opportunity to talk with viewers, listeners and surfers who are passionate and people who may not be traditional CBC viewers. What we’ve created here is something good to build off of for many years to come.”

^{The CBC gave away some of its tickets to South African kids during the tournament.}

Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC Sports praised the network-wide effort that “resulted in tremendous month all around.”

In particular Moore singled out the news department for their coverage which was a joint operation with the sports department. More said he’d never seen this level of cooperation in his time at the network “this may have been the best example of all the various parts of the CBC coming together to make something as big as it can be,” he said.

The results speak for themselves.

The final audience number for the final were 5.8 milllion on CBC and Radio-Canada. Although some of that may be juiced from the new audience measurement system, either way it’s still a whopping 105 per cent larger than the audience for the final in 2006.

The third place match was also a big draw, it attracted 1.9 million people on Saturday afternoon.

Overall between June 11th and July 11th, more than 28 million Canadians watched 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa programming on CBC and Radio-Canada. There are more audience numbers, including a breakdown as the tournament progressed after the jump.

The number also showed strong online demand. “We set new records online with our streaming and our event coverage. We surpassed CTV’s concurrent streaming number from the Vancouver Olympics and served up well over 15 million streams over the course of the tournament,” Moore said.

WORLD CUP AUDIENCE BREAKDOWN

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Between June 11 and July 11, more than 28 million Canadians watched 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa programming on CBC and Radio-Canada.

Here is the breakdown for the tournament:
Opening Round CBC Television Average Audience – 956,000
Round of 16 CBC Television Average Audience – 1.490 million
Quarter-Finals CBC Television Average Audience – 1.892 million
Semi-Finals CBC Television Average Audience – 2.254 million
Overall Tournament CBC Television Average Audience (includes live and encore) – 1.265 million
CBCSports.ca Total Live Streams – 8.485 million

CBC’s coverage of the FIFA World Cup set a new standard by enabling Canadians to experience every single game from the tournament on television and, for the first time ever, live and on-demand on CBCSports.ca. In 2014 CBC will once again showcase the world’s best with comprehensive coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil.

*Source: Television audiences are BBM overnight, A2+ (PPM measurement).  Streaming numbers: CBC Research – Omniture HBX (2009) and Omniture Site Catalyst (2010)

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