Nearly 1.2m tune in for Rugby World Cup final

Nearly 1.2 million Kiwis tuned in to watch the All Blacks beat Australia during yesterday's Rugby World Cup final, according to Nielsen.

671,000 Kiwis watched the live final on Prime, while a further 495,000 watched the game on Sky Sport 1.

Unsurprisingly, the final was the highest rating game of the tournament, ahead of the quarter final against France on November 18.

Just over a million Kiwis tuned into the quarter-final clash earlier in the month, while the semi-final against South Africa saw an audience of 681,000 across both Sky Sport and Prime.

While the numbers are likely to top this year's list of most-watched programmes, they are well down on 2011 World Cup figures, which saw more than 2.2 million viewers watch the All Blacks beat France in the final.

Sky Television declined to release viewer figures to the Herald or to comment on the ratings.

Last week, the company warned its annual profit would fall by up to 11 per cent as the business deals with rising costs and the challenge of online competition from streaming services such as Netflix and Lightbox.

Meanwhile, a recent survey commissioned by Lightbox found that nearly one in five Sky subscribers were planning to cancel their subscription following the Rugby World Cup.

- nzherald.co.nz