
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...
25/08/2026
Two Cultures. Millions Reached. One Berklee Connection. Meet Annie Dickinson and Zhengxi Zhang-the couple who turned their creative partnership into music car...
25/08/2026
Amagi, the media industry cloud platform for unified broadcast, streaming, and monetization, today announced that Law&Crime has migrated its Court TV channel, s...
25/08/2026
Broadcast Solutions, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast and media industry, is showcasing the breadth of its ca...
25/08/2026
Thatcham, UK 25 August 2026: Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, has announced that leading broadcast rental company Minitech has purchased a Le...
25/08/2026
Appear's X20 Platform enables visually lossless video contribution with sub-frame latency and full path redundancy for TVTEL's centralised VAR operation...
25/08/2026
World-first demonstration combines 5G Broadcast and Media over QUIC for seamless, ultra-low-latency hybrid media delivery
Big Blue Marble will showcase new dev...
25/08/2026
MNC Software, a global leader in network management and operational support systems tailored to the broadcast and media industry, will showcase its complete sof...
25/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/08/2026
Company to Demonstrate Practical AI Applications That Add Value Today and Longer-Term Path Toward Agentic AI
At IBC2026 (Sept. 11 14, RAI Amsterdam, Stand #1.B...
25/08/2026
Serving South Florida with a unique blend of jazz, Latin jazz, salsa, reggae, blues, and culturally reflective programming, WDNA 88.9FM operates as both a tradi...
25/08/2026
GlobalM announced that it is integrating its GMX software-defined media platform with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), bringing together Oracle's global c...
25/08/2026
NVIDIA is bringing the next wave of RTX gaming to the Gamescom conference running this week in Cologne, Germany, with support for new games, anti-cheat technolo...
25/08/2026
The new series begins Tuesday 1 September at 7pm on RT One and RT Player
The search for Ireland's hidden housing gems is back as Cheap Irish Homes return...
24/08/2026
Co-authors Mike Soltys and Garrett Sutton reflect on Rasmussen's vision, intentional optimism,' and fan-first philosophy following his death last week...
24/08/2026
Human-played drum fills on demand
Sample library developers Yurt Rock have announced the launch of a new plug-in that's dedicated to creating drum fill...
24/08/2026
Debut plug-in in new Professional Series
Black Rooster Audio's latest plug-in delivers an all-in-one vocal-processing tool, and is the debut release in ...
24/08/2026
SBS WorldWatch embraces digital future with move to SBS On Demand
24 August, 2026
Media releases
On 18 September, SBS WorldWatch will transition from a lin...
24/08/2026
Rohde & Schwarz addresses operational efficiency and infrastructure resilience a...
24/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
24/08/2026
As the broadcast industry moves toward more flexible production platforms, Calrec will present its evolving audio ecosystem at IBC 2026, on Stand 8.C47. The dem...
24/08/2026
Stop Using Boring Static Highlights - Pro After Effects Workflow
Graham Quince August 24, 2026
0 Comments
Did you know you can use After Effects expre...
24/08/2026
Paledusk Performance Captured with URSA Cine Immersive
Brie Clayton August 24, 2026
0 Comments
Creative production company THINGS. brings the band'...
24/08/2026
The Handel Scandal and Dangerous Debussy will both air on Sky Arts this AutumnMo...
24/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, w...
24/08/2026
Arvato Systems Becomes a Service Partner of HANDELSVERBAND.swiss
Zurich - Arvato Systems Switzerland has been a service partner of HANDELSVERBAND.swiss since ...
24/08/2026
According to OpenRouter data, agentic AI workloads consume 15x more tokens than ...
24/08/2026
The next era of AI inference won't be defined by a single breakthrough chip,...
24/08/2026
To generate intelligence at scale, AI factories run continuously, and their economics are defined by delivered output: tokens per second, tokens per watt, cost ...
24/08/2026
We Only Want the Earth: The Life & Ideas of James Connolly airs
Wednesday 26 August on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
RT is to air the compelling documenta...
23/08/2026
Offers up to 10 bands of compression
Parish Audio's latest release allows users to place individual compressors anywhere in the frequency range, but tak...
22/08/2026
O'Shea Jackson Jr., Dave Franco, and Mason Thames appear in Idiots by Macon Blair, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of ...
22/08/2026
By the time Hacks reached its fifth and final season, Adam Bricker ASC had spent six years shaping one of television's most distinctive visual identities. T...
22/08/2026
Polsat reclaims second place, ByteDance climbs to eighth, and live football miti...
22/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/08/2026
Avid brings agentic media production to IBC2026
Brie Clayton August 21, 2026
0 Comments
After launching Avid Content Core at NAB 2026, Avid expands it...
22/08/2026
Making of Lord of the Flies Shot with Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro
Brie Clayton August 21, 2026
0 Comments
Filmmaker Lisa Marie Russo shoots on the bea...
22/08/2026
Homecoming Artist Spotlight: Dogs in a Pile The rising jam band talks about where it all started on the Berklee campus ahead of their Homecoming performance o...
22/08/2026
Berklee Alumna Lexi Vollero MA '22 Receives Fulbright Award to Brazil Vollero, a Berklee NYC graduate, has been selected for a Fulbright Open Research Awa...
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...