Paul Rouget, Media365: published on Monday November 18, 2024 at 10:11 a.m.
The victory of Didier Deschamps' men in Italy on the last day of the group stage of the League of Nations attracted 5.14 million viewers, more than 2 million less than France-New Zealand in rugby the day before, already on TF1.
Is rugby supplanting football in the media in France? Unthinkable just a few years ago, the question deserves to be asked today. Because the Top 14 regularly achieves better audiences than Ligue 1 on Sunday evenings, in particular thanks to its broadcaster, Canal+, much more established than that of the French football championship, now broadcast mainly by DAZN, which struggles to attract subscribers.
A phenomenon again observed this weekend. While the narrow victory of Antoine Dupont and his teammates against the All Blacks (30-29), Saturday evening at the Stade de France as part of the autumn tour, brought together a record audience for a test match, with 7.27 million viewers on TF1 (37.9% of the public), and an audience peak of 8.3 million viewers, the great victory for Didier Deschamps' men in Italy (3-1), the next day at Milan in closing of the group stage of the League of Nations, did much less well.
Declining audiences
This success of the Blues, who took advantage of it to seize first place in group 2 to the detriment of their hosts, brought together more than two million fewer viewers than rugby, since there were 5.14 million watching the leading channel, or 24.8% of the public according to Médiamétrie. Three days earlier, the sad draw against Israel at the Stade de France (0-0), in a very particular context, had done even worse, with less than 5 million viewers on average (4.95 million, or 24 .7% of the public).
This is still better than last month. In October, the first leg against Israel only attracted 3.98 million viewers, the lowest audience for the France team since June 2019. It was then a little better in Belgium, with an average of 4.73 million viewers.
