More than two million watch England World Cup match on BBC

James Gordon

More than two millions viewers watched England‘s World Cup clash against Fiji on the BBC on Saturday.

A peak of audience of 2.2m tuned in to see England‘s 34-12 win, which equates to a 15% share of the total viewing audience across all channels.

The figures compare strongly with other sport available to audience on Saturday, including the ATP Tennis World Tour Finals on BBC2 at the same time which had a 1.2m peak audience.

The England v Argentina rugby union international had a peak of 571,000, while the live Premier League football on SKY had a peak of 810,000.

RLWC2013 Tournament Director Nigel Wood said: “These figures demonstrate how the excitement and high-quality matches we have seen in Rugby League World Cup 2013 are capturing the wider sporting public.

“It has been fantastic to have seen so many record attendances at the group matches themselves, as well as such excellent viewing figures and the next few weeks, as we enter the drama and tension of the knock-out phases of the tournament, are a wonderful opportunity for the sport to build on this initial success.”

Photo courtesy of www.swpix.com