Eurosport claims EMS top slot

Eurosport has claimed top spot amongst channels covered by the EMS Summer Survey.

The main Eurosport channel recorded a weekly reach of 21.2 million viewers, on a par with last year’s survey. However, the sports broadcaster claimed strong gains in viewership for the Eurosport 2 channel, which marked a 25% gain in weekly reach to 8.5 million against its 2010 figure. Eurosport.com had a weekly reach of 7.2 million, up 9%, while Eurosport mobile had a reach of 2.2 million, up 13%.

Jean-Thierry Augustin, managing director, distribution, rights acquisition and development said that the results showed the strength of the consolidated Eurosport platform – including channels, online and mobile together. He said that the performance of the Eurosport 2 channel, especially in central and eastern Europe, reflected Eurosport’s localization strategy and the strength of the content the broadcaster had acquired for the channel. He pointed to the acquisition of international Bundesliga football rights, which were extremely popular in Poland (which supplies a significant number of players to the German league), as well as content that was popular across the region, including basketball and volleyball. He also said that from the end of this moth Eurosport would broadcast one game a week from the national Polish league live, a move that would attract attention elsewhere given that Poland (along with Ukraine) is hosting the UEFA Euro2012 championship.

Augustin also attributed part of the channel’s success to its launch of HD services. He said that Eurosport HD was now available in 14.1 million homes across Europe.

Augustin also pointed out that Eurosport was now a mult-platform content provider, and that its smartphone app had been downloaded 3.5 million times, while its tablet apps had been downloaded 400,000 times to date.