World Cup draws record viewership to Telemundo and Peacock

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — The World Cup is drawing record viewership to Spanish-language broadcasts on Telemundo and Peacock, with Mexico’s match against Poland giving the digital streaming platforms their biggest weekday in total consumption.

Mexico's win on Tuesday was the most-streamed World Cup game in U.S. history with a total audience delivery of 4.6 million viewers.

The tournament-opening match between Ecuador and Qatar drew 832,000 viewers, a record for most-streamed Spanish-language match that was broken one day later when 1 million streamed the United States-Wales game.

Streaming has comprised 29% of Telemundo’s viewership for the World Cup. Telemundo said Thursday it was averaging 2.5 million viewers across all broadcast and streaming platforms through the first eight matches. The total is up 44% from 2018, when the United States failed to make the World Cup in Russia, which was held in June and July.

Peacock held the top spot on the App Store for free iOS applications from Sunday-Wednesday, and the Telemundo Deportes app was in the Top 5 for most of the week.

Additionally, the United States’ opening 1-1 draw with Wales was viewed by 11.7 million for its English- and Spanish-language broadcasts. The Monday game was seen by 8,306,000 for Fox’s English-language telecast and 3.4 million for the Spanish-language offering on Telemundo, Telemundo digital and Peacock.

Telemundo and Peacock are both part of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal. Telemundo is the exclusive U.S. Spanish-language TV rights holder to this year's World Cup in the United States.

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