
Over 200 hours of live coverage of all 64 games across RT 2, RT Player and RT News Channel delivered record audiences
8.5 million total streams on RT Player
Over 1 million people watched the World Cup Final penalty shoot out
780,000 watched the most exciting World Cup Final in history on RT 2 and also 478,000 total live streams on RT Player
After a thrilling 64 games airing live across all RT platforms, it came down to one of the most exciting world cup finals in living memory as Argentina and France battled it right out to the bitter end in a penalty shootout which resulted in the world's greatest player winning the ultimate prize and lifting the World Cup trophy. RT provided live coverage of all 64 games across RT 2, RT Player and RT News Channel to Irish audiences over the past month. Yesterday's World Cup Final saw record numbers of 780,000 (59% share) on RT 2 and also 478,000 live streams on RT Player. The final peaked at 17.54 when 1.030M viewers sat on the edge of their seat as Messi went up against Mbappe in a nail-biting penalty shootout.
Over the four-week period, record numbers tuned into over 200 hours of World Cup coverage across television, player and radio live from Qatar showcasing the best what football had to offer. The road to the final saw huge audiences as Argentina's semi-final victory over Croatia was the most-watched match on RT 2 which had an average audience of 784,000. England v France was in third overall place with a 760,000 average audience. The second semi-final between France v Morocco was the fourth biggest match on RT 2 scoring 632,000 viewing average.
Football fans tuned into RT Player in their droves as 8.5 million total streams was recorded across the tournament. This is an increase of 240% on live streams on Euro 2020 tournament and a 47% increase on the World Cup tournament in 2018. Yesterday's World Cup Final had 478k live streams with viewers tuning in from all around the country to make it a record-breaking tournament for RT Player. Since the World Cup began on 20th November, RT Player has had 15 million streams in total. Viewers have also been engaged with a wide variety of content, including Quinn Country, The Late Late Toy Show, Frasier, Normal People and The Irish Civil War.
Group Head of RT Sport, Declan McBennett, said: The Messi Mbappe World Cup brought about audience engagement at unprecedented levels and is a tribute to the professionalism of those involved from presenters, pundits and production teams. The comprehensive coverage of primarily a wonderful sporting tournament while addressing the backdrop of social and political issues was embraced by the audience and will live long in the memory.
Head of RT Player, Aoife Byrne, said: We are thrilled with the performance of the FIFA World Cup on RT Player. With a total of 8.5 million streams and 1.8 million unique devices, it has been a record-breaking tournament. The epic final between Argentina and France had 478,000 live streams and was the most-streamed match of the tournament. Our focus over the past two years has been on investing in and improving the reliability and resilience of RT Player and particularly our ability to scale to meet the rapidly increasing audiences we're seeing, both live and on-demand. The user experience achieved during the World Cup where RT Player delivered its highest concurrent audience ever demonstrates the effectiveness of these works.
RT coverage of the FIFA World Cup 2022 was proudly sponsored by Hyundai and KFC.
All above TV figures are based on Inds 4+, Live + VOSDAL
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
21/08/2026
A massive deployment of specialty cameras, graphics, and AR will showcase the na...
21/08/2026
The West Coast Conference unveiled its new 30-second public service announcement, the latest expression of the Conference's We Rise in the West brand iden...
21/08/2026
New look will serve as the foundation for ESPN's upcoming NFL season and Sup...
21/08/2026
ESPN will air the ninth annual MLB Little League Classic presented by New York Life on Sunday, August 23, at 7 p.m. ET from Historic Bowman Field in Williamspor...
21/08/2026
In an emotional acceptance speech in Canton, Grossman celebrated the pioneering ...
21/08/2026
Hardware-style timing shifts for software instruments
Following on from the release of Omniclock, Rapid Flow have launched a new sequencer plug-in that can ...
21/08/2026
Highly anticipated synthesizer ships in October 2026
Iceland-based Love Synthesizers have announced that their highly anticipated synthesizer is now availab...
21/08/2026
Masterpiece PBS The Forsytes has expanded its cast as its begins production in ...
21/08/2026
The BBC has unveiled first-look pictures from The Witch Farm, a new ghost story and mystery set in the Welsh countryside, coming soon to BBC iPlayer and BBC One...
21/08/2026
The BBC and BritBox have revealed the first look of Edward Bluemel as Hercule Poirot in the forthcoming six-part series Hercule from Mammoth Screen and Agatha C...
21/08/2026
Our priority was making the best, most powerful, most meaningful story possible,...
21/08/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Avid will unveil how it is transforming production to help media organizations unite content, agentic workflows, and business insights at IBC2026 (RAI Amsterda...
21/08/2026
New routing, modular processing, orchestration and monitoring capabilities bridge dedicated hardware and software-based processing as part of the Dynamic Media ...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/08/2026
When hundreds of thousands of people gather to hear a single voice, there is no room for compromise. Every word must be delivered clearly, every wireless transm...
21/08/2026
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, today announced a strategic partnership with ScorePlay, the AI-powered media infrastructure that spo...
21/08/2026
NUGEN Audio announces the launch of its new Post Plan and Producer Plan, two flexible subscription offerings designed to give audio professionals short term acc...
21/08/2026
Join the Screen Currency 2026 Ask Me Anything (AMA) Online 20 August 2026
(L-R): Adrian Coates, Grainne Brunsdon, Deirdre Brennan, Rachael Perkins
Got questio...
21/08/2026
** MEDIA ALERT **
VIZ Media Takes Over Anime NYC with BLEACH, BLACK TORCH, M...
21/08/2026
Tell us a little bit about your job I'm a Marketing Manager and work across a mix of clients and projects. No two days are ever quite the same, which defini...
21/08/2026
Beat The Lotto dives into the plot behind the 1980s National Lottery scandal
24 August 2026 at 9:35pm on RT One and RT Player
Beat The Lotto is the story o...
21/08/2026
The countdown to the most wonderful night of the year has officially begun!
Host Patrick Kielty is gearing up for another unforgettable Late Late Toy Show nig...
21/08/2026
Meet puppet duo Bellie and Whizz, who are about to explore all the big feelings ...
20/08/2026
From host-broadcaster and rightsholder support in June and July to MLS, NWSL, US...
20/08/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
20/08/2026
At IBC this year, Veritone (14.A56) is bringing two connected themes to the booth: architectural independence in enterprise AI, and the automation of the media ...
20/08/2026
Telestream and ScorePlay have announced a partnership combining Telestream's...
20/08/2026
The Grand Slam of Curling and Rock League have announced a three-year agreement with ESPN, bringing more than 300 hours of live curling coverage to U.S. audienc...
20/08/2026
Nielsen has announced a series of enhancements to its Big Data + Panel currency measurement methodology, taking effect August 31. The updates were developed in ...
20/08/2026
Net Insight has been selected by service provider Big Blue Marble (formerly ORS Group) to provide its Nimbra platform as the core media transport solution for a...
20/08/2026
The 2026 US Open will bring a series of free fan activations across New York City ahead of and during the tournament, which runs August 23-September 13.
We...
20/08/2026
Bridge Technologies will announce a transport stream (TS) playout feature for its VB330 and VB220 compressed monitoring probes at IBC2026 (Booth 1.A71).
The fe...
20/08/2026
ENCO will demonstrate solutions across captioning, translation, AI production tools, automation, and virtual production at IBC2026 (Stand 7.A34, Amsterdam RAI, ...
20/08/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will demonstrate camera robotics and mot...
20/08/2026
Chyron will demonstrate news workflow solutions at IBC2026 (Stand 7.A23), marking the company's 60th anniversary. Highlights include updates to PRIME HTML, ...
20/08/2026
Spectrum SportsNet LA, the exclusive television home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is now available to Spectrum customers in former Cox markets following the clos...
20/08/2026
swXtch.io will unveil expanded Global SRT Distribution and native multicast tran...
20/08/2026
Riedel Communications has announced that Transformation Church in the United States has deployed a communications system built around the Artist intercom ecosys...