The French team made a success of its debut at the World Cup in all respects: more than 12.5 million viewers followed Tuesday from 8:00 p.m. on TF1 its big victory against Australia (4-1), according to figures from Médiamétrie published on Wednesday.
While the World Cup in Qatar had been the subject of calls for a boycott before its start, this match achieved the “best audience since June 2021 for all programs and all channels”, welcomed TF1.
This number of viewers is comparable to that of the first match of the Blues at the 2018 World Cup, again against Australia (12.6 million), which took place on a Saturday at 12:00 p.m.
At the time, viewers of the entry into the running of the Blues, however, represented a larger share of all those watching television at that time (69% audience share, against 48.1% for Tuesday's game).
These audience scores seem to show that the calls for a boycott of which the competition was the object did not have a notable impact.
Since the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar in December 2010, the competition has sparked much controversy on subjects such as respect for human rights and the protection of the environment.
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