Johannesburg – Bafana Bafana's early exit from the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup would have probably disappointed local advertisers as the most sought-after figures, sourced by SA media company Carat on Thursday, revealed that matches involving the national team garnered the largest television audience for a sporting event in the country's history.

"From the perspective of TV audiences, the World Cup has been an unqualified success. The opening match between South Africa and Mexico, with a combined SABC 1/SuperSport 3 viewership of 7.7 million, attracted over 20% more viewers than the 6.2 million local viewers who watched South Africa playing Brazil in the 2009 Confederations Cup," said business unit head at SA media company Carat, Brett Hobbs.

According to Hobbs, prior to the World Cup, the 2009 Confederations Cup was by far the greatest sports broadcast event in the country's history.

By way of comparison he pointed out that 2010 Nedbank Cup football matches in South Africa attracted an average of 1.7 million viewers each, while the Telkom Knockout Cup attracted an average of 2 million viewers per match.

"If we look at the Cricket T20 World Cup in 2007, which was hosted in SA, TV only managed to peak at about 2.7 million viewers. This was for the match between SA and India, and unfortunately we were knocked out of the tournament at that stage," said Hobbs.

"A far more important event, not only compared to the T20 World Cup but for our country, was the IRB Rugby World Cup 2007, even though we did not host it. The first SA game generated a collective local audience of about 1.9 million viewers and this gained momentum, naturally based on the Springboks success, right through to the final, which achieved 4.4 million viewers," Hobbs said.

Some 4.7 million South Africans watched the first game of the Confederations Cup in South Africa where the hosts played against Iraq, according to Carat. It added that the SA vs. Brazil game reached 6.2 million viewers.

"But what is very important is that the final of that tournament also attracted significant audiences – slightly over 4 million – even though it was played between the USA and Brazil. Clearly these figures reflected the fact that people enjoyed a great end to a well executed locally-hosted tournament," Hobbs said.

All viewership figures quoted were sourced via Telmar's 'Transmit', television network planning and optimisation tool, and are based on adult viewers over the age of 16.

The numbers refer to 'at home' viewers and therefore exclude the likes of viewers watching the matches at pubs and taverns, Carat concluded.

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