THE COMPLETION OF Dublin’s Drive for Five on Saturday night was a huge TV hit for RTÉ, with over 1.1 million people tuning in as Jim Gavin’s side made All-Ireland SFC history.

A peak audience of 1,123,300 watched the All-Ireland football final replay against Kerry on the RTÉ 2′s The Saturday Game Live, with Dublin running out six-point winners to wrap up a first-ever five-in-a-row in the GAA.

A statement from the national broadcaster reveals that an average of 966,600 viewers tuned in for the showdown, a share of 72.3% of those watching TV at the time. Additionally, RTÉ Player welcomed a total of 140,808 streams.

Likewise, for the drawn game, the audience peaked at 1.1 million viewers, while the average audience was 968,700.

“It’s a fitting testament to two great teams that audiences again tuned in to RTÉ in such huge numbers to witness the climax of a great GAA Championship year,” RTÉ Group Head of Sport, Declan McBennett said.

Elsewhere there were record numbers for the TG4 All-Ireland ladies football finals on TG4. While a record-breaking attendance of 56,114 — just short of the 57,900 at this summer’s Fifa Women’s World Cup final — saw Dublin, Tipperary and Louth lift silverware at Croke Park, those at home tuned in on TG4.

Source: TG4.

In all, 666,000 watched, with an average audience of 252,500 observing the senior final between Dublin and Galway — that’s a rise of over 70,000 from 2018, and makes this the second-highest viewing figure for a ladies’ final on TG4 since it first started to broadcast the games in 2001.

Viewing peaked at 358,440 and the match took a 30% share, making TG4 comfortably the most popular channel in Ireland yesterday afternoon.

Back to Saturday night’s figures, they come on the back of an increase across the board on RTÉ in 2019, with Dublin’s semi-final meeting with Mayo watched by 697,000 fans; yielding a 63% share of viewing. That was 244,000 more than watched last year’s semi-final game between Dublin and Galway, which commanded a 47% share.

The following day last month, Peter Keane’s Kingdom saw off Tyrone in their last four battle with 546,000 tuning into the action. That’s a 22% increase on 2018’s semi-final clash of Ulster rivals Monaghan and Tyrone (449,000).

Average viewing for all of RTÉ’s Super 8s games this year was 344,000, opposed to 303,000 in 2018.

Source: Declan McBennettRTE/Twitter.

In the small ball code, the 17 SHC matches RTÉ showed threw up an average share of 46.9%, up from 45.6% in 2018. Over 800,000 people tuned in to Tipperary’s emphatic All-Ireland final victory over Kilkenny.

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That same weekend in August, the All-Ireland camogie semi-finals attracted impressive figures with interest growing year-on-year there too. The All-Ireland quarter-finals registered an 11% increase in average thousands, while the semi-finals grew by 18%.

- Updated after the release of TG4′s numbers for the ladies finals

Former Ireland performance analyst and current coaching wizard of OZ Eoin Toolan joins Murray Kinsella and Gavan Casey to predict Ireland’s World Cup, break down every pool, and call the overall winners.

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