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The Group Round of the World Cup ends this Thursday June 26th, and tensions are high as teams vie for places in the upcoming Round of 16. As we revealed earlier, the first game Ghana played, which aired at 10pm local time, did not have as high a viewership as some other games in Ghana. However, this weekend Ghana played Germany, a crucial game for them after their loss to the US, and the viewership numbers show a much different story.
The Ghana-Germany game aired at 7pm Ghana time on Saturday, and was viewed by over 3.7 million adult Ghanaians, a significant increase from the first game, viewed by 2.4 million adult Ghanaians. This also made the Ghana-Germany game the most watched game in Ghana up until now, and the most viewed event in Ghana since GeoPoll started tracking TV viewership in April.
Other countries in Africa were also gripped by the Ghana-Germany game: in total, over 24.5 Million adults from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania watched the game, making it the second most popular game in those countries overall, behind only the opening Nigeria game.
In Nigeria, 15 million adults watched the Ghana-Germany, game, while only 10.6 million remained to watch Nigeria play Bosnia & Herzegovina. Viewership declined across all countries after the Ghana game ended on Saturday: in total 15 million watched the first half hour of the Nigeria game, down over 9 million from the peak Ghana game viewership.
Overall, GeoPoll’s viewership numbers for the first round of games has confirmed the popularity of soccer across Africa. In the 5 countries surveyed viewership for the World Cup has been high, no matter what teams are playing. The earliest games have had particularly high viewership even when African teams were not playing: since the start of the World Cup, at least 17.5 million adults across Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria have watched part of the first game played each day. This is likely because later games go well into the night; in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya the final match of each day (up until this week when games are played concurrently) has not started until 1am local time.
Below are some more stats on the percentage of total adult TV viewers who watched the Ghana-Germany match in each country. GeoPoll determines the number of adult TV viewers by asking GeoPoll members age 15+ if they have watched television in the past 30 days before adding them to our Audience Measurement panel. In Nigeria, for example, out of an estimated total adult population of 100.6 million, GeoPoll has determined that 73.4 million are TV viewers.
For insights on television ratings, channel share, and audience demographics, click below:
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