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Half of Denmark watched handball World Cup final triumph

Ritzau/The Local
Ritzau/The Local - [email protected]
Half of Denmark watched handball World Cup final triumph
Photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

It may be a niche sport internationally, but over half of Denmark’s population were glued to their television sets and computer screens as the country became handball world champions for the first time.

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In addition to 15,000 spectators at Boxen arena in Herning, 2.74 million also watched the match from home, according to broadcaster DR’s research unit DR Medieforskning.

The final against Scandinavian neighbours Norway was broadcast on both main channels, DR1 and TV2, with 1.58 million viewers tuning in to the former channel and 1.16 million watching the match on the latter.

That is a much larger television audience than the group stage match between the same teams, which was seen by 1.86 million people on DR.

According to DR, more people watched last night’s handball final than the final of the 1992 football UEFA European Championships, when Denmark famously defeated Germany 2-0 to pull off a shock tournament victory.

The all-time record audience for a television broadcast remains an episode of the hugely popular and influential 1978-81 series Matador, a chronicle of life in a provincial Danish town in the early 20th century.

A 1986 repeat of an episode of Matador was seen by 3.6 million people.

However, different methodology in the 1980s means that viewing figures from the period are not a direct comparison to those measured today.

The population of Denmark in the third quarter of 2018 was 5,806,000, according to official agency Statistics Denmark.

Norwegian news agency NTB reports that 1.1 million people in Norway watched the match on channel TV3.

READ ALSO: Danes crush Norway to win first men's handball world title

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