I bet he wishes he was on the pitch ...
+++ UPDATE – ENGLAND v SLOVENIA ATTRACTS RECORD ONLINE AUDIENCE FOR BBC +++
There’s just hours to go until we find out if England can turn themselves around and deliver some sort of performance (something we are yet to see in from them in World Cup 2010) and qualify for the round of 16.
Although we’ll all be rooting for the home nation against Slovenia this afternoon, BBC bosses will be particularly anxious that England get through, or else their World Cup ratings might just turn out a little sour.
The beeb have already fallen behind ITV1 in the highlights ratings, but without a second England game, they are sure to falter in the live viewing figures too.
ITV, as is customary, opted for the ‘safe’ option for their sponsors and advertisers, electing to take two group games, guaranteeing them at least that double hit of ratings magic that only England in the World Cup can deliver. They’ll be happy with their 12.3 million audience for the opening England game against the USA (plus 1.19m on ITV1 HD) and an increased audience of 12.9m for the abysmal Algeria game (which also returned 1.12m in high definition), on both evenings they commanded more than 50 per cent audience share across all channels.
For the BBC though, it could be a slightly less rosy picture if Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and company don’t come out firing on all cylinders this afternoon.
Although it’s the crucial deciding game, Auntie has got the first weekday England afternoon game, with a 3pm kick-off, which will surely see a smaller audience than the first two England games that were Saturday and Friday night prime-time slots for ITV.
OK, there is no meaningful competition from the other channels (how many people will be drawn away from the clash by Deal or No Deal?), but still, the game is on during work hours, and even in the best tradition of sickies (and our great nation has a good line in this), surely 12 million people aren’t going to bunk off work this afternoon?
In 2006, when England played Brazil (at 8am till 10am), ITV only managed to scrape 6.1m viewers for the game … yes it was early… but it was Brazil, who many might argue are a slightly bigger draw than Slovenia. If similarly lowly figures are repeated for today’s game, the BBC will have everything crossed that England win and get through to the next round as it’s their only hope of staying with ITV in the ratings battle.
The Beeb has the live coverage of England’s round of 16 game (if it happens) and would likely clean up with big numbers with either a Saturday night 7.30pm kick off if England win Group C or a Sunday afternoon 3pm clash if they stumble into second. These numbers could be inflated furthermore if that first knock-out game turns out to be against our oldest footballing foes Germany … and that could well happen.
The Beeb are keen to stress that if you are stuck in the office today for the Slovenia game, you can always watch the match online, in fact they’re cranking their online services into overdrive at 3pm. Here’s what their man in White City told the Beehive:
“The match will be streamed live through BBC iPlayer and the BBC World Cup website, and as we expect this to be the biggest event that we’ve streamed live to date, we’ve set aside as much capacity on our servers as we reasonably can.
“The open internet isn’t an end-to-end managed network, so peoples’ experiences will vary depending on their internet connection. But we want audiences to get the best quality picture possible for their local connection and to avoid the picture buffering, our streams will be available in a range of different picture qualities that automatically switch depending on the connection speeds available.”
So, as you sit down to the game this afternoon with Gary Lineker and friends in your front room (or at your computer), spare a thought for the poor old Beeb … thanks to the unique way it is funded, if they lose the ratings war, in a way, so do you.
Come on boys, you can do it… for England, St George and the BBC!
England v Germany – Sunday and 1966
On a visit to Uzbekistan in 1994 I met a Russian man in Bokhara. He travelled a long way to meet me and we drank a lot of Vodka. The only English shared initially was Stiles, Charlton, Hunt, Hurst, Moore, Cohen etc.. each name required a toast and a further swig of Vodka. He did not want to hear any German names I quickly ascertained.
The translator had been detained elsewhere arrived just after I’d erred in mentioning Uwe Seiler and Beckenbauer, Hoeness and Muller all drew silence or dark muttering. I was only trying to keep up the cameraderie.
It all brightened up as the translator told me his story of The world cup and the reason he had travelled many miles to tell me. this guy had come to Uzbekistan in 1966 to help rebuild Tashkent which had been detroyed by a devastating earthquake and he had remained there, possibly still is there.
His story was that his Uncle had been in Stalingrad as a sniper and he knew Tofiq Bakhramhov as a young man who delivered bullets to isolated units and snipers fighting the Germans. I thinkl he may ahve been a sniper himself at some stage. His point was that the lads eyes were fine and that he was part of a group of fighters from Azerbaijan. They came to Stalingrad to fight for Russia as he had voluteered to go to Tashkent. It is the Russian way.
I worked out as a result of the Tofiq’s background it was never NOT going to be a goal.
It is only recently that I dound out Bakhramov’s dying words wjen asked about the goal simply said “Stalingrad”
It is enough to confirm the veracity of the Russian’s story for me.
Regards
Brian taylor
Battersea