Socceroos set subscription TV record

The Australia v Uzbekistan World Cup Qualifier football match last night created a new Australian subscription TV record audience with an average audience of 431,000 people watching the game on FOX SPORTS.

The Australia v Uzbekistan World Cup Qualifier football match last night created a new Australian subscription TV record audience with an average audience of 431,000 people watching the game on FOX SPORTS.

The three and a half hour telecast reached just under one million Australian viewers according to ratings recorded by OzTAM Data.

These figures do not include the huge number of people who watched the match at one of the 4,000 FOX SPORTS venues around Australia.

“This is an outstanding result for FOX SPORTS and the Australian subscription TV industry as it again reinforces our commitment to and investment in Australian sport” said FOX SPORTS CEO David Malone. “To achieve audiences of this magnitude is a clear indication of the strong growth of subscription TV and further evidence of the viewing audiences we can deliver.”

Football Federation Australia (FFA) CEO, Ben Buckley, said that the record FOX SPORTS audience was further evidence of the popularity of the Qantas Socceroos.

“We know from the 2006 FIFA World Cup that the Qantas Socceroos have a large following and Australians are genuinely excited about the possibility of us participating the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

The Australia v Uzbekistan World Cup Qualifier had a higher average audience than any program in the history of Australian Subscription TV and a peak half hour audience of 508,000.