The RWC semi-final was watched by 1.9 million viewers across the country, according to the official agency that monitors television ratings, AGB Nielsen. This means it took over as the number one TV event ever from the opening ceremony and All Blacks vs Tonga game, which lured 81 percent of all viewers.
TVNZ and MediaWorks are always competitive, as the rather confrontational comparative promo TV3 ran after the Japanese earthquake showed very clearly. But this was taken to a new level on Sunday when TVNZ sent out a press release saying 60 Minutes had “lost almost half its audience since March and almost 300,000 viewers per week since February”. Embarrassingly, the figures TVNZ used were wrong and, understandably, MediaWorks is none too pleased.