Initiative's most recent ViewerTrack reveals that 40% of all Germans tuned in for the semi-final, compared with 38% of Italians.
With Germany hosting this year's World Cup, levels of interest and expectations were even higher there than in other soccer-mad countries like Italy. Throughout the tournament, an average of 34% of all Germans have been watching Germany's matches.
The fortunes of the Italian team have also engaged viewers in Italy, with 31% of Italians, on average, watching Italy's progress in the competition to date at home. Out of home audience figures were not included.
Unsurprisingly Germany v. Italy was the most watched match of the tournament to date in both participating countries, with each nation hoping for victory to take their team into the 2006 World Cup final.
The average live program audience for the match in Germany was 28m viewers with an audience share of 84%. In Italy, 21m viewers watched the match, an audience share of 79%.
The semi-final was also popular in other countries. Across 17 markets for which overnight data are available, Germany v. Italy attracted an average live programme audience of 99 million viewers.
Across these same 17 markets, this match was the most watched of World Cup 2006 so far. Outside of Germany and Italy, audiences for the match were highest in Croatia, where 27% of the population tuned in.
If out-of-home viewing were also to be included in these figures, the audiences for this World Cup semi-final would have been even larger.
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