TV audience soars to a peak against England

The Welsh Rugby Union’s official broadcast partner, the BBC, delivered another television audience record as the Championship surpassed expectations with a thrilling climax on the last day providing still greater numbers of viewers tuning in to immerse themselves in the annual festival of rugby.

The BBC’s average match audience of 4.3m beat the 4.2m achieved for last season’s Championship with the audience peaking to 8.0m for the Ireland v England clash at Croke Park. There was also a rise in the average audience share which rose from 30.4% to 31.5%.

Wales’s struggle to find a win in the Championship didn’t dampen audience expectation with their five matches gathering in a match audience total of 21.9m viewers averaging 4.38m per match with an average peak audience of 4.68m viewers.

Wales’s victorious clash with England in the very last match of the 2007 RBS Six Nations Championship proved more than just a spectacle on the pitch as it provided the highest audience share on the final day peaking at 5.9m viewers out of the day’s total of 11.3m. This share was achieved in spite of the two matches that decided the title (Italy v Ireland and France v Scotland) taking place beforehand in Rome and Paris.

The Championship also saw Wales’s clash with France in Paris carried nationwide on BBC Radio Five Live and for the first time ever viewers were able to experience Wales home games broadcast in HD (High Definition), along with the home games of England and Scotland. BBC Sport’s website also carried video highlights coverage of the Championship at both half time and full time with extended highlights available 24 hours after the final whistle.

WRU Group Chief Executive, Roger Lewis said: “These tremendous figures stand as a testament to the value and worth of the RBS Six Nations Championship in the context of the world of sport, rugby union and the special place the game of rugby holds here in Wales.

“The rise in figures shows that Welsh rugby is enjoying a rich vein of support throughout the heart of the Welsh communities and the Welsh team will go into their Rugby World Cup campaign this autumn buoyant in the knowledge that they are so strongly supported both at home and across the UK.”

BBC Director of Sport, Roger Mosey commented: “This shows the strength of the RBS Six Nations and the importance of it being available free-to-air to the whole of the UK.”

The RBS Six Nations Championship also saw around 441,000 users visit the Welsh Rugby Union website during the seven weeks that the competition ran with the Millennium Stadium website taking in a further 209,000. During this period the Union took the opportunity to launch the Rbk Welsh Rugby Union Podcast providing a weekly round up of the latest developments in Welsh rugby.

The Welsh Rugby Union was also able to provide a live online match tracking facility for those ex-pats and fans unable to get to the match or near a television or radio. The RBS Six Nations Match Tracker provided minute-by-minute match commentary and statistical data accompanied by live match audio from the BBC to enable fans to experience Wales’s matches from their PC’s desktop.

The fixture schedule for next season’s RBS Six Nations Championship will be announced later in the season. In the meantime, Wales look forward to their summer tour to Australia before embarking on a trip to Twickenham followed by two Invesco Perpetual Summer Series matches at the Millennium Stadium against Argentina and France in August as a prelude to the 2007 Rugby World Cup.