June 19 – World Cup TV viewing data in the African continent is showing pan-regional interest in the World Cup and in African teams in particular. GeoPoll has released data on viewing figures in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda showing large proportions of national populations are tuning in, skewed strongly towards young adult males.
Mobile survey platform GeoPoll utilised data gathered from SMS, voice and web-based communications, which are capable of reaching respondents in areas without internet connection.
Figures show 20% of the adult population in Nigeria tuned in to watch their nation’s game against Iran. Over 25 million adults from the surveyed African nations watched the game, 17.5 million of which were Nigerian.
Ghanaian viewership trends show interest in games across the board. 2.4 million viewers watched their opening game against USA, which is, surprisingly, significantly less than the 3.5 million Ghanaian viewers who watched the Brazil/Croatia tournament opener.
This difference may be somewhat explained away by the fact the game kicked off at 10pm Ghanaian time, opposed to the more reasonable 8pm for the opening match. However, the time difference is more minor than one might expect from the drop in audience number. The figure suggests that Ghanaian interest is not solely focused on their own team’s endeavours, but on the sport and on the tournament in total.
On average so far, 2.2 million Ghanaian viewers have been watching at any given moment.
Promisingly for African football, the youth population has taken to the World Cup in numbers. For the Germany/Portugal game, there were 1.7 million Ghanaian viewers and nearly 900,000 Kenyan viewers, all aged 15-24. In Nigeria 3.5 million youths watched the event.
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