August 11, 2008, Beijing China – According to China’s leading audience measurement organization, CSM Media Research (a part of TNS Media Research), the 2nd day of the Beijing Olympics continued to attract high levels of viewing among Chinese TV viewers; by taking into account only sports programs (exclusive of sports news and magazines), more than 771 millions Chinese watched at least 1 game yesterday. On average yesterday each Chinese watched 207 minutes of the Olympics Games (or nearly 3 and a half hours), much higher than normal TV consumption.
The long awaited basketball game between China and the USA was aired live late in the evening on CCTV2 (from 22:20-24:00). Despite this relatively late scheduling for Chinese viewers, CSM Media Research recorded a record audience for such a timeslot with 94 million viewers on average, reaching 184 million Chinese who have watched at least part of the game on CCTV2. The peak audience was registered at 22:52 with 128 million Chinese in front of their TV sets watching Yao Ming and his colleagues at the start of the 2nd quarter.
Pierre Justo, Director of CSM Sport Research comments: “This audience is the highest ever recorded for any basketball game in China. While basketball is usually strongly followed by men (70-75% of the audience on average), yesterday’s game attracted a large number of Chinese women as well, and they accounted for 40% of the audience.”
Yesterday’s highest audience was the weightlifting gold medal for China aired right in prime time at 8 p.m. on CCTV 1 with over 271 million viewers watching China win its 6th Gold medal live.
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About CSM Media Research
CSM Media Research is a joint venture between CTR Market Research (the leading market research company in China) and the TNS Group. Dedicated to TV & radio audience measurement research, CSM Media Research offers reliable and uninterrupted rating information for Hong Kong SAR and China. As the “trading currency” of the TV, radio broadcasting & advertising trade, CSM Media Research operates the world's largest TV & radio audience measurement panel, covering China 's 1.2 billion TV populations and Hong Kong SAR's 6.3 million TV & radio audience at the aged 4+. This operation therefore covers 217 individual markets (comprising the national entity, 25 provinces and 191 cities including the Hong Kong SAR), with some 54,000 homes and 178,800 panelists participating in the measurement of over 1,298 main channels and 379 radio frequencies , every day of the year.
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