Predictions...

BBC1-
World Cup Final- 12.4m *peak of 16m

ITV-
World Cup final- 3.7m *peak of 5m

So that is an average of 16.1m, achievable?

Not me. I watched The Bill repeats from the Drama channel which have been stacking up nicely on my recording box the final will rate massively though - I think 12m average tomorrow, with a peak in the 14 million range.

Think that'll go down well on ARD in Germany.

Expecting 40m peak.

ITV only got 2.96m last time

Well Samuel isn't here and he normally creates many talking points at times like this

Make it 3.3m then!

Naa, I predict 12.5m for Titanic, 1.3m combined for the match. The Garden show will even beat the match with 8.8m.

Well at least we know Salv has been enjoying himself tonight going by those predictions.

I can't wait to see what share it managed in Germany.

Not the best final you'll ever see by any means but there was a feeling it could go either way all the way through and the broadcasters got an extra half hour.

Messi player of the tournament though? Goodness me, he wouldn't be in my top 5. This World Cup will be remembered for the goal filled group stages and Germany v Brazil.

The World Cup did bring the audience for a Doctor Who trailer which will hopefully help the launch of the new series. BBC one giving it a chance to light up the ratings so far... And we have the makings of good series if the clips are an indication. Lovely that Peter is being allowed his native accent. Hope he doesn't feel typecast though, he doesn't seem a particularly warm and cuddly kind of "Who"

BBC one had finished but ITV has not and is now on a ad break but are returning from it.

Its the 2nd Germany v Argentina final thats been a shocker.

It's very bizarre.wat are itv playing at? A few words then a break.a few more then another break,and they've just come back on why?

umm not sure what you are on about A it was a really great match and B they've never had a final before

Would be great to hit the magic 90% share. We watched the closing minutes on ARD and ORF. When the Germans won, the commentators were surprisingly calm. Another day in the office for those guys. Job done.

They've had 2 previous finals. It was a great match though, I agree.

Looks like ITV are aiming for a record low ITV News. Three breaks in 20minutes then onto the news at 11:35pm, 15minutes after the BBC. Viewers are naturally going to drift to the BBC with Adrian Chiles and co waffling. Just get on with the damn news at 11:15pm when scheduled.

I bet ITV News will be around 1.2m v 6.4m for BBC.

That was better than the 1990 final. At least we got some chances on goal.

"Hurry up and get the small matter of the World Cup over so we can get a big rating for the news"

ITV won't care one bit about the rating for a normal weekend news bulletin, it was already 45 mins later than billed anyway, a high rating for the news wouldn't mean anything except in this thread.

Imagine the outrage

I was listening to some radio pundits reflecting on the tournament overall and they seemed to think there's a fair chance England could regress further in the coming years. That could be an interesting one for us to watch play out from a ratings perspective if indeed that did happen.

It's amazing really how consistently well supported they are in terms of TV audience for what has, for some time now, been a very ordinary team of individuals. I know it's our number one sport and we're more patriotic than we like to let on, but you have to wonder if it will ever get to the point whereby they lose it to such an extent and let the nation down so many times with lacklustre performances that worse still lack desire, that audiences won't flock to watch them in quite the same way they once did?

Something to ponder perhaps but worth reflecting more fully tomorrow on what - regardless of the above - has been a wonderful tournament for both the BBC and itv. It really has captivated audiences with story after story, night after night. Oh how they'll miss it. Fortunately for the BBC another big event is just around the corner but for itv it will be hard initially to readjust.

The final wasn't the greatest football match in the world but it will have done very well in the viewing figures, specifically for BBC One.

Slightly off topic but I found it bizarre that BT Sport (or the media company that owns their rights) had bought an internal ad space for their football coverage during Big Brother tonight. I don't think the majority of the main target audience would have been watching Channel 5 at that moment in time!
Last edited by Fudd : 14-07-2014 at 00:28

That's an odd one. Perhaps they started a new campaign today to coincide with the World Cup finale and the countdown to the Premier League season commencing and wanted to cover as many bases as possible? C5's advertising is doubtlessly all over the place at the moment anyway.

I wonder how the films will have held up numbers wise. Titanic is a plausible female-skewing alternative, meanwhile purely by chance Step Brothers started at more or less just the right time to capture the post-football crowd not interested in the final analysis or news.

Fortunately for the broadcasters, the global nature of the game and the Premier League means England's involvement is less necessary than it's ever been to secure interest from the public. Yes, the three England games were the biggest rated - of course they were. But I think the gap between England games and the best of the rest has shrunk. The ratings story of the tournament has really been those early Brazil games and that incredible pair of semi finals. English success would be a phenomenal bonus, but the appeal of the tournament itself right now would seem stronger than it's ever been.

ITV will now start their build up to The X Factor with a quiet few weeks of TV. I would imagine that Simon Cowell has many newspaper stories lined from the "Cheryl vs Louis" fake arguments through to the absolutely amazing young singer who blew the panel away with her/his rendition of .......