RTÉ’s coverage of Ireland’s Rugby World Cup opening game against Scotland was viewed by a peak of 937,600 viewers on Sunday Morning.
The average number of those watching came in at 640,000 representing a 70 per cent share of those watching television at the time.
In addition to these numbers a further 127,426 live streams were delivered via the RTÉ Player.
Given the early hour of the morning you can be pretty sure that those watching were very invested in the programme.
Part of the attraction will have been a seemingly frosty relationshiop between panellists Eddie O’Sullivan and Jamie Heaslip, following in a long tradition at RTÉ of wanting to have a ‘watchable’ panel debate before, during and after the games.
Sunday’s number compares to a peak of 926,000 who watched Ireland defeat New Zealand at the Aviva Stadium in November 2018 and comes in just 35,000 short of the peak for the most watched sports programme in the whole of last year when Ireland won the Grand Slamn at twickenham in March.
The numbers bode well for the knock out stages in particular when Ireland look set to face South Africa on Sunday morning, October 6th at the later scheduled time of 10:45.
At time of writing we do not have access to the number of additional viewers who wil have watched the match on eir Sport who showed every game over the weekend.
RTÉ’s coverage of the Rugby World cup is sponsored by Bank of Ireland.
