text: France: Record TV audience for World Cup Final
  December 19, 2022
  From Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris
  An average audience of 24.08 million in France watched the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final match as their country was beaten by Argentina. This equates to an 81 per cent audience share and a record-breaking viewership for French television. The penalty shootout peaked at 29.4 million viewers.
  The previous record was also held by a football match; the France vs Portugal meeting during the 2006 World Cup which pulled in an average of 22.2 million viewers.
  Across the whole day, TF1, which was the FTA broadcaster of the World Cup, held an average 45 per cent audience share. The World Cup tournament has seen the French commercial network average an audience of 8.7 million viewers for each of the 24 matches broadcast on the channel. This is slightly ahead of the 2018 World Cup audience which registered at 8.6 million.
  On December 14th, 20.69 million people, with a peak at 23.4 million, watched the French team’s semi-final win against Morocco, earning TF1 a 66 per cent audience share.