Early
figures for the five metro markets show that this morning’s World Cup
elimination game between Australia and Italy, rated its socks off for SBS with
more than 2.78 million people tuning in and watching the first hour of the
broadcast from 1am.

Oztam figures say an average 2.212
million people were watching the game from 1am to 2am when ratings for 26 June finished.

In
regional areas, the ratings show that an average 569,000 tuned in from 1am. The
early figures show that SBS had 86% of the audience from 1am. The
ratings for the rest of the broadcast will be available
tomorrow.

Once
again the figures show that Sydneysiders supported the
Socceroos in far greater numbers than those in
Melbourne.
The
Sydney audience averaged 835,000; Melbourne, 589,000.
Melbourne’s audience didn’t average more
than 600,000 during the four games Australia played.

The
Sydney audience
was down on the 943,000 who watched the Australia-Croatia match in the early
hours of Friday morning. The Melbourne audience was up on the 507,000 for
that match. Brisbane saw an average of
264,000 (279,000 for the Croatia game), Adelaide, 234,000 (168,000) and Perth, 291,000
(126,000).

The
pre-game program on SBS averaged 1.018 million, so the audience doubled in the
space of half an hour, which was a pretty good achievement.