Millions watched or attended the World Cup

Fri, Apr  17, 2009 - By FIS

As part of the analysis of the past World Cup season FIS, together with its market research partner IFM Research GmbH from Karlsruhe (GER), has been reviewing the TV audience figures in the main ski markets. The initial evaluation, based on live and delayed coverage of the FIS World Cup tours in the 2008/09 season, has revealed some interesting facts.

Cross-Country figures show that the channel with most viewers last season was Eurosport on which 73.5 million people watched the Viessmann FIS Cross-Country World Cup. The channel with the highest market share was Norway's NRK with 54.4% average for more than 47 hours of live and delayed coverage.

The one competition that reached the largest audience on a single channel was the men's Final Climb on the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme (ITA) on 4th January as 4.76 million people watched on Germany's ZDF as Dario Cologna (SUI) claimed his first big title.

ZDF is also the channel where Nordic Combined found the largest number of viewers as 49 million people followed the DKB FIS Nordic Combined World Cup 2008/09 season. The highest market share was again recorded by Norway NRK with 45.5%. The greatest number of viewers for one competition on a single channel was the ski jumping portion of the World Cup competition in Val di Fiemme (ITA) on 10th January during which a TV audience of 4.87 million followed the competition.

How about people attending the events?

In the Viessmann FIS Cross-Country World Cup, almost 450,000 fans enjoyed the performances of their favorite skiers on site during competitions in 11 nations. In ten nations, the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup was visited by almost 670,000 people this season. The DKB FIS Nordic Combined World Cup travelled to seven nations and was seen by over 100,000 spectators.