We thought we already had the biggest weekend in Irish sport when the All-Ireland hurling final grossed a peak figure of over 900,000 viewers earlier this month.
But yesterday's All-Ireland football final stole the show with an average audience of 885,000 and a peak figure of over one million viewers tuning in to the broadcast. Not only does that surpass the numbers who watched the hurling, it also means that the All-Ireland football final was the most-watched programme on Irish television so far this year.
The next most popular programme from the 2015 RTE schedule is the RBS 6 Nations tie between Ireland and England at the beginning of March which generated an average viewership of 756,000. This year's All-Ireland football final also exceeds last year's game by 49,000 viewers.
RTE Head Of Sport Ryle Nugent tweeted the figures earlier today.
Massive audience for Dub v Kerry Final. Most watched programme of the year. 875k average.1.085m peak.Thanks for watching @RTEsport
— Ryle Nugent (@RyleNugentRTE) September 21, 2015
Meanwhile, senior members in TV3 are hopeful that their broadcasting rights for the 2015 Rugby World Cup will generate the highest ever audience for the broadcaster. This means they need to hit over 930,000 viewers in order to overtake their figures from the 2010 X-Factor Final.
