The FIFA Football World Cup 2014 has provided internet TV platform Zattoo with record OTT viewership figures in Germany.
Up to 120,000 unique users watched the games of the tournament’s first round as live-streams on public broadcasters ARD and ZDF through Zattoo. The matches with German participation achieved the highest ratings, in particular the games starting at 21.00 CET.
The match between Germany’s national team and the USA recorded the strongest demand: Almost 120,000 viewers watched the live coverage through Zattoo. Germany vs. Portugal was seen by 115,000 viewers and Germany vs. Ghana by 90,000 viewers.
Ahead of the World Cup, Zattoo had around 700,000 active users in Germany each month, Jörg Meyer, vice president content & consumer, told Broadband TV News. “During the World Cup we expect the figure to rise to over one million.” In total, Zattoo accumulated more than 7 million registered user accounts in Germany since its launch in 2006.
“The high usage of internet TV services such as, for example, also the catch-up portals by the public broadcasters, shows that the internet continues to establish itself as a distribution platform for linear television,” said Meyer.
In addition to Zattoo, ARD and ZDF can also be received as free-of-charge live-streams within Germany on competing internet TV platform Magine TV and on the websites operated by the two public broadcasters.
