France-all blacks hits tv record

SUNDAY MORNING IS NEW PRIME-TIME AS UP TO 18 MILLION WATCH THRILLING RUGBY WORLD CUP FINAL RUGBY drew the year's biggest TV audience with 15.4 million viewers watching the Rugby World

Cup final between France and New Zealand. Sunday morning hardly counts as prime-time but the 10.00 kick-off time did not put off viewers... although there was a massive surge towards the end

of the match when, by 11.43, 18m were glued to their sets as France missed out on the vital points that would have won the match. They lost 8-7. In all, the Auckland final was watched by

82.3% of the people watching TV and the end of the game was watched by one in three of TV owners in France. It was the best audience of the year across all channels and all programmes. The

total viewing audience was much larger as the Médiamétrie survey does not include the many thousands watching in bars and rugby clubs around the country. However, it was not the largest

viewing total ever for rugby, with the 2007 RWC semi-final between England and France pulling in 18.3m viewers. It came after the quarter-final against New Zealand with 16.7m. Advertising

revenues for the whole RWC competition hit €27.2m for TV channels, with €24.2m for TF1 which had bought the viewing rights. The final alone - with studio commentary by Sébastien Chabal -

brought in €4.2m for TF1 which boosted its prices for the game. Half-time spots jumped from €100,000 to €125,000.Car manufacturers paid the most for the viewers’ eyes: Renault paid €1.83m,

Citroën €0.98m, Peugeot €0.84m and Ford €0.8m.