June 17, 2011 – Based on the viewing figures published by the European Broadcasting Union, the TV and marketing rights holder, the FIS World Ski Championships 2011 were seen by almost 1.2 billion viewers (1,178m) worldwide.

While some 660 million cumulative viewers watched the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships from Garmisch-Partenkirchen (GER), the total (live, delayed, news or highlights) coverage from Oslo (NOR) was enjoyed by a record audience of 519 million global TV viewers.

Besides Oslo 2011 seeing the highest number of cumulative viewers ever recorded, it also posted a new record cumulative broadcast duration with more than 797 hours of coverage of which 67.3% was shown live and 19.3% delayed. Especially the host nation Norway set a new national record of viewership with almost 65 million cumulative viewers, while Poland with 35 million and Sweden with more than 28 million also set new national records. In Norway, several of the live event programs reached market shares of over 85%, led by the men’s 30km pursuit race which recorded 89.8%, or an audience of 1.435 million Norwegians.

The top live audience for Garmisch-Partenkirchen in a single market was Germany, the host nation, which set a new record of 37.5 million live viewers. More than 3 million alone watched the live coverage of the opening ceremony shown on German ARD channel. In terms of cumulative audience across all transmission types, Germany amassed almost 320 million viewers, a new record, whilst Italy, too, set a new national high with more than 160 million cumulative viewers. 56.9% of the transmission from GAP 2011 was live, followed by 32.9% delayed.