Saturday night’s nail-biting Rugby World Cup quarter-final fixture between Ireland and New Zealand drew in an average audience of 1.378 million, peaking at 1.541 million in the final moments of the match (21:49) with a record-breaking 78 percent share of viewing.
292,800 fans also tuned into the Virgin Media Player to catch all the action live which is another record figure.
The match represents the largest Irish television audience of the year so far and was the best performing match of the tournament. It is the largest-ever audience in Virgin Media’s 25-year history.
“The massive audience for Saturday’s quarter final illustrates how the entire nation got behind this talented Irish squad,” said Mick McCaffrey, Head of News and Sport at Virgin.
“Although the result didn’t go the way we wanted unprecedented viewing figures like this highlights the importance of keeping live sport on free to air television.”
“The fact that such huge numbers watched our in-depth analysis both before and after the match is a tribute to our pundits, presenters and commentators as well as the production team working hard behind the cameras.”
RTÉ will show friday’s New Zealand Vs Argentina semi Final while Virgin will return with the South Africa Vs England Semi-Final on Saturday night.
Both channels will show the Rugby World Cup final on the evening of October 28th, though none of these are likely to match the highs of last Saturday night in terms of viewing figures.
