Talk:List of most-watched television broadcasts

message: Why is this on the list? How is that being judged? I really don't understand the criteria here. 
Is it estimating the total number of people who watched any coverage of it from any source anywhere in the world? Is there a time frame? The day of the attacks? The week? What constituted coverage? Any mention of it anywhere on television? full 24 hour coverage? Why aren't other things like that on the list? Hurricane Katrina, Pokemon Go, millennium new year.
It seems strange to have this added to the list. 9/11 was a world event, not a television broadcast.
70.71.234.123 (talk) 00:06, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  9/11 Terrorist attacks? 

message: For a better part of the section along with data there are implications and analysis of those said data. And in no way, that data have been referenced with proper source materials and hence seems to be an original material of the contributor. Probably that needs to be looked upon, whether it is indeed against the Wikipedia policies or not. Unique1997 (talk) 10:16, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  India: original-research in the section? 

message: Is the figure for the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics (3.6 billion) accurate?
The IOC's GLOBAL BROADCAST AND AUDIENCE REPORT noted that the "Projected Global 1 Minute Reach" was only 3.2 billion. --Ratha K (talk) 21:03, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global viewing figures for Rio 2016 

message: In the Global section, is there any reason the List and Ranking sections shouldn't be combined? - 2603:9000:E408:4800:BC40:EE1:E9AF:4A4C (talk) 17:44, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundancy 

message: Would it be possible to add another small list of programs by single network broadcasts. I know they already have a note, but it’s the only one here that counts all three networks as a single broadcast together. Because they’re all counted together, a lot of single broadcasts aren’t shown. I’m not suggesting we get rid of the current lists, but add another to see more of the other single broadcast shows. It can be somewhat unfair to count all three networks when it could be argued that they were most watched because viewers had little option of other shows on and the added bonus of several networks counted as one, as it undermines the real popularity of the broadcast. Again, no other countries here have this, so I believe this should warrant an additional list.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:D548:B200:DD20:126D:84F8:49F6 (talk) 20:17, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion for Australia 

message: Se na lista de Portugal não consta o último episódio (pelo menos o último) da telenovela Gabriela, a lista está errada.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.80.214.144 (talk) 21:27, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gabriela 

message: I don't know what criteria are used for this page but in an attempt to counter US-centricity, I note that UEFA Euro 2016 claimed 2 billion individual viewers per AP, and that was only 100m up from UEFA Euro 2012 (same ref) so I imagine quite a few Euros will have gone over the 1 billion mark. The 2014 Commonwealth Games had 1.5 billion viewers according to the Scottish government and "over 1.5 billion" is claimed for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, but I can't find an Australian source for that, just eg this. Again I imagine quite a few of the past ones will have gone over a billion.Le Deluge (talk) 10:25, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Commonwealth Games and football Euros 

message: https://www.paralympic.org/news/rio-2016-paralympics-smash-all-tv-viewing-records
According to this ink by IPC,Rio 2016 Paralympics were watched by 4.1 Billion people,which would make rio 2016 Paralympics the most watch television broadcast of all time.and also the list mentions 2018 Winter Olympics while the link is actually of Paralympics, so you might also wanna update that ਬੱਬੂ ਬਰਾੜ (talk) 20:17, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Tillu Talla (talk) 12:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paralympic Games 

message: Hi,
The "Global" list in its current state has no encyclopedic standard, has huge problems with invented audience figures, and is itself a source of misinformation. Editors also wilfully confused single broadcasts with multiple broadcasts or series (which are not even eligible for the page), and many exaggerated numbers were quoted, originating from event promoters, with no basis in reality. Since the British Empire article lost its 'featured' status and some of its racist outlook, this section may now be the worst and most misleading part of Wikipedia.
 There are some good aspects:
* The "National" sections are correctly using data from independent sources that measure television ratings (Nielsen, TAM, BARB, GfK, etc), for the most part. The countries' lists may not be complete or may lack some large broadcasts from the past, and are always approximate in any case. But they're on the right path to giving a reliable overview.
* "National" sections follow a common pattern: single-event or single-episode broadcasts. (No series or two-week events, because they aren't comparable.)
* "National" sections mainly use the average audience that watched the full broadcast, which is AFAIK the gold standard in measuring a broadcast's viewership fairly. (Not "peak" or "cumulative" audience.)
 On the less good side:
* Failure by some editors to understand how TV ratings work, and basic failings in logic
* Unhealthy focus on uncited "world records" and outdoing other editors
* WP:RECENTISM and WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims – not only has this article claimed "world record" broadcasts that are not listed as records in any source, but also, users have exacerbated the problem by copying press releases (self-promotional and unreliable material). Users also conflated "whole tournament" broadcasts with single matches. Just really basic, fundamental errors.
* Disorganized news coverage (Gulf War, 9/11) may be very important, but cannot be classed as "a broadcast" in the sense that this section requires. As Anon wrote above, the news coverage is too unfocused to be reduced to a reliable global audience figure – different world broadcasters covered these events with different video/film, at different times, in different timeslots, with different reporters and presenters seen throughout. If (in line with other events) an average audience were calculated, it would be relatively low due to the sheer length of coverage.
* Just as we wouldn't often rely on a cookery writer as a source in a sports article, or vice versa, it's unwise to rely on non-television specialist authors or journalists here without extra verification. Journalists very often quote TV ratings that are wrong or misleading.
* Many sources here cannot be seen as reliable, in that the numbers the writer quotes are second-hand, hearsay, or not independently measured.
* Clearly there's been some POV editing and wishful thinking by fans of particular events – this is forgivable, as the false numbers appear in published media often, but Wikipedia has to take a more rigorous and analytical approach.
Audience figures given by FIFA, the IOC and others were shown in 2007 by The Independent and Sporting Futures to be widely inflated by 400% or much more, misleading the public and sponsors. This was acknowledged at the time and FIFA pledged to be more accurate, but as you may have noticed, the same tendencies returned soon after.
Unrealistic numbers are quite easy to debunk, because most major nations have independent agencies to measure national viewership, but AFAIK there isn't an international ratings body, nor are the national figures often combined in any reliable "global" TV viewership report. Nobody provides a counter to the inflated figures.
For example, an internal Tour de France paper claimed a figure of "1.98 billion" watching its event, but 73% of that was the estimated audience to see it in news or magazine reports (i.e. on other programs), and the actual live audience (309 million) was added together from every stage of the race. The real audience was only about 15 million a day. (Dr Daam Van Reeth, pp17-23) Tour organizer ASO went further and claimed that 5 billion people watched it...
There's a fairly persuasive argument that the 2008 Olympic opening was the first event to get close to 1 billion viewers (c970 million, IIRC, measured independently), but even that is the cumulative audience, not average, which was lower. The Beijing ceremony was a major world sport (and news) event, held in primetime in the world's largest country, planned for years, broadcast in most of the world, and an important event for China – a combination of factors that no other broadcast has had.
For the record, these were this List's erroneous "top five broadcasts" as of 2021 (a measure of how badly the article has gone wrong). They need to be edited with a scythe, like the rest of the section, and I'll be happy to do that.
 List of the most-watched television broadcasts of all time
Date(s)                              	Television broadcast(s)    	Estimated audience (billions)	Source(s)                                                                                                                     	Content             	
11 June to 11 July 2021              	UEFA Euro 2020             	5.23                         	                                                                                                                              	Association football	
7 September 2016 to 18 September 2016	Rio 2016 Summer Paralympics	4.1                          	                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports      	
to                                   	London 2012 Summer Olympics	3.6                          	                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports      	
to                                   	Rio 2016 Summer Olympics   	3.6                          	                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports      	
to                                   	Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup 	3.572                        	"More than Half the World Watched Record-Breaking 2018 World Cup"  (21 December 2018).  FIFA.com.  Retrieved 24 December 2019.	Association football	
* Euro 2020: Not a broadcast, a series of broadcasts, not eligible for these lists. Comes from a self-interested source, which clearly states these are "cumulative" (i.e. inflated) audiences, and even UEFA accepts that no match got more than 328 million viewers. A continental event, not a world one, and this should have been considered before posting.
* 2016 Paralympics: Not a broadcast, a series of broadcasts, not eligible for lists. Self-interested source, and clearly unrealistic figures, regardless of the merits of this event and its positive impact on sports and society – 2016 Summer Paralympics#Broadcasting shows that the Games were broadcast sporadically, if at all, and chiefly on secondary TV channels or websites. From actual ratings, even the best Paralympic coverage had relatively low audiences in the U.S. (651,000 at most, NBC) and UK (2m peak, Channel 4).
* Summer Olympics/FIFA World Cup: Again, the lists aren't for month-long series of multiple broadcasts. The sourcing is poor or self-promotional. A single event from these could qualify e.g. opening ceremony / final, but may also be subject to exaggeration or misleading numbers.
More than half of the 'Global' section has had problems or is irrelevant to the topic. A few bogus figures can be easily disproven in the internet era, when more accurate national figures are widely available through contemporary reports. For pre-internet events, this may be more difficult.
* Michael Jackson: The 2009 memorial service was seen by less than a tenth of the population in the United States (31 million) and United Kingdom (6 million), countries where interest was highest. In Asia it was broadcast overnight, hence much lower potential ratings. Unexplained "estimates" put the audience at 1 billion, or later, 2.5 billion in the source here. Usually Wikipedia would question a disparity of 1.5 billion or 2 billion, you would think...
* Baywatch: "2 September 1989 to 26 February 2001"... Must've been a long episode. Regardless of the (non)-veracity of the "1.1 billion" audience over 12 years, this article's purpose is not to measure ratings for a full TV series – and certainly not by adding up multiple TV shows, e.g. the dreaded Idols, which has a paragraph in the overlong 'Global' section with no relevance to it.
* Cricket: Often has outlandish claims of billions of viewers – when the total population of every Test cricket-playing country is 1.5 billion – of which 1 billion are in India. An exceptionally high average audience for a game on TV in India was 135 million (CWC Final, 2011).
* Muhammad Ali: Figures of 1-2 billion are often repeated, but utterly unrealistic – boxing is a famously self-promotional sport. As well as the issues raised by IMSoP above, the Manila article says 100 million Americans saw the bout on closed-circuit theatre television(!) ...citing a kickboxing magazine. Ali's fights were staged for primetime in the USA/Americas, ensuring lower audiences in four-fifths of the world; Rumble in the Jungle began at 4am local time; Thrilla in Manila at 10am. "When people make historic claims about any TV audience prior to the 1980s, they often forget that virtually nobody in Asia owned a TV before then (one in a hundred households in China in the late 1970s for example, fewer in India, and that’s almost half the planet’s population in two countries)."  Klitschko audiences definitely didn't belong in a Global section: even with exaggeration, they weren't large enough for this list. Per Wikipedia lists of TV coverage of his fights, promoters essentially claimed that over half the population of Europe watched an event shown mainly on PPV or minor cable channels.
Others: These were other multiple-broadcasts / tournaments / series in the list as of 2021, which shouldn't have been added. (They may have had millions of viewers, but they weren't eligible for the list anyway.) Sourcing is also usually incredibly lax.
 
Date(s)                              	Television broadcast(s)            	Estimated audience (billions)	Source(s)                                                                                                                                                                     	Content
11 June to 11 July 2021              	UEFA Euro 2020                     	5.23                         	                                                                                                                                                                              	Association football
7 September 2016 to 18 September 2016	Rio 2016 Summer Paralympics        	4.1                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports
to                                   	London 2012 Summer Olympics        	3.6                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports
to                                   	Rio 2016 Summer Olympics           	3.6                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup         	3.572                        	"More than Half the World Watched Record-Breaking 2018 World Cup"  (21 December 2018).  FIFA.com.  Retrieved 24 December 2019.                                                	Association football
to                                   	Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics       	                             	                                                                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports
to                                   	Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics       	3.5                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics        	3.5                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	Athens 2004 Summer Olympics        	3.5                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	France 1998 FIFA World Cup         	3.4                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	Association football
to                                   	South Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup   	3.2                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	Brazil 2014 FIFA World Cup         	3.2                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	
23 July 2021 to 8 August 2021        	Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics         	3.05                         	                                                                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports
to                                   	2002 FIFA World Cup (Korea & Japan)	3                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	Association football
to                                   	Germany 2006 FIFA World Cup        	3                            	Tom Dunmore, Historical Dictionary of Soccer, page 235, quote "The World Cup is now the most-watched sporting event in the world on television, above even the Olympic Games."	
to                                   	ICC Cricket World Cup 2019         	2.6                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	Cricket
to                                   	Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics     	2.1                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	Winter sports
to                                   	Torino 2006 Winter Olympics        	2.1                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics     	2.1                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics         	2.1                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics   	2.02                         	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics        	2                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports
to                                   	Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics   	2                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports
to                                   	Seoul 1988 Summer Olympics         	2                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	
to                                   	Barcelona 1992 Summer Olympics     	2                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	
10 June to 10 July 2016              	France UEFA Euro 2016              	2                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	Association football
to                                   	Montreal 1976 Summer Olympics      	1.5                          	                                                                                                                                                                              	Olympic sports
to                                   	France 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup 	1.12                         	                                                                                                                                                                              	Association Football
to                                   	1990 FIFA World Cup Italia         	1                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	Association football
to                                   	Gulf War                           	1                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	Military conflict
to                                   	1994 FIFA World Cup USA            	1                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	Association football
to                                   	2016 Wimbledon Championships       	1                            	                                                                                                                                                                              	Tennis
Advice to all editors:
* Find the most reliable numbers, not the highest claimed numbers. 
* Single broadcasts are the focus of the article, as you can see in every "National" section.
** For the world list, in particular, by its nature it is limited to certain types of events: e.g., sports matches, ceremonies, live TV events (if simulcast internationally), concerts (if simulcast internationally); also, organized news events such as weddings, funerals, and press conferences would qualify. The latter can rate very highly on a national level, due to their brief length and national importance, e.g. Macron's announcements in France in 2020; see the "France" list.
* "Tournament total" audiences are not appropriate to list here, nor are multi-week audiences (not comparable with a one-off broadcast), though they might be of interest in the relevant tournament or TV series article.
* Stop competing with each other – it doesn't improve the article.
- Demokra (talk) 00:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree. Keep both or remove both, but it is necessary to proceed on an equality criteria. 62.42.66.79 (talk) 01:33, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Worst article on Wikipedia (2021 version) 

message: Without a history section, such as the top broadcast per year, incredible viewerships such as an Ed Sullivan broadcast, are not present. Kdammers (talk) 14:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: You'll find The Ed Sullivan Show on this list: List of most watched television broadcasts in the United States--Jahalive (talk) 19:36, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  history 

message: Demokra covered a lot of issues in the  section, but the most important one (to me anyway) is how many of these numbers probably have no basis in reality and are completely made up.
The articles by Nick Harris from Sportingintelligence linked to in that section are pretty convincing. From his research:
*The most-watched event in history (at least when he wrote the article in 2011) was the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing with an audience of 1 billion (or 593 million if you use average audience)
*The 2011 Cricket World Cup final between India and Sri Lanka had an audience of no more than 400 million (and I would argue much less)
*The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was watched by 300 million
And his estimates of 100 million for the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana and 250 million for Princess Diana's funeral look much more realistic than the numbers in the global table.
He writes: "Many of the supposedly “most watched” events in history have been attributed viewing figures that were simply made up. And these numbers are passed down as fact, unquestioned." I now have no confidence that any of the numbers in the table are accurate.--Jahalive (talk) 19:39, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: This is more useful than the article! Dan100 (Talk) 18:33, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are any of the global totals real? 

message: According to FIFA, practically every world cup final breaks 500 million concurrent and 1 billion at some point, and considering football’s global reach, this is completely conceivable. AndrewKkh (talk) 10:29, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: They should be on the list although there is some question about the accuracy of FIFA's numbers in the #Worst article on Wikipedia (2021 version) section. The article Sincere good wishes to Wills and Kate, but a 2bn TV audience? Garbage. Only the Olympics and the World Cup are truly global events, and half as big as that at best gives some independent analysis of the numbers.--Jahalive (talk) 23:10, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  No World Cup finals on the global list? 

message: The point of Wikipedia is that it should be a source of factual information, right? If there’s such concern about the sources/references used here and if there’s truly no way to have accurate information about viewership of each event and whatnot, then maybe this article should be deleted. To me, this clearly doesn’t meet Wikipedia standards if it’s loaded with potentially false information. I should note that I have  no intentions of trying to delete this article or even officially nominating this article for deletion - not going to open that powder keg! Howeve, it feels common sense to me that this article should be deleted and/or significantly revised. Dym75 (talk) 13:41, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maybe this article should be deleted? 

message: We need to add it here well over 2 billion MAY have watched it so we need to confirm numbers then add it. 81.109.48.40 (talk) 11:34, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The key part of that sentence is "confirm numbers". That means waiting for official agencies to publish their figures, and for someone to collate those into a reputable worldwide total. We can't write an encyclopedia about things that may be true. - IMSoP (talk) 18:10, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The current most watched broacast is supported by an article from Billboard that clearly says estimate. None of these numbers are even close to accurate. 216.183.148.107 (talk) 00:05, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Queen's funeral 

message: To quote WP:LISTCRITERIA:
The Global section of this article seems to fail on all counts: the criteria are unclear, and do not seem to be based on any external standard; they synthesise statistics from a number of unreliable sources, in such a way that the list itself is essentially original research. None of the discussions above seem to have reached a conclusion as to how this can be remedied.
I therefore propose the following:
* Delete the entire "Global" section. The remaining sections of the article are, for the most part, much more clearly in line with the guideline quoted above.
* Remove the "National" top-level heading, promoting the headings below it.
* Reword the lead as follows:
That could possibly be expanded with a discussion of the types of program which receive global audiences - sports events, historical events, concerts - but should be very wary of including too many examples, and certainly no viewing figures, so that we don't invite a global list back in "by the back door".
What does anyone think? - IMSoP (talk) 21:18, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the lack of explicit objections, and having read FIFA already predicting a ludicrous 5 billion figure for the Qatar World Cup, I've decided to Be Bold and make this drastic cut. I apologise to those who had put effort into the previous text, but I haven't seen any convincing alternative solution to the large number of issues with that section. - IMSoP (talk) 14:55, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: ...And you made the right choice. —theMainLogan (talk) 09:41, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: Delete Global section, permanently 

message: I am completing the merge for this discussion. Please take a moment to review my changes in the Most watched television interviews section, and let me know if I made any mistakes. Thanks. Deauthorized. (talk) 10:42, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD Merge 

message: As the space broadcast happened with roughly half of the population of today should the list be sorted as a percentage of people who viewed it for it's respective country or the world in the case the space broadcast? 68.48.113.58 (talk) 17:55, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most views