FA Cup fails to draw TV fans

The Embassy World Snooker championship proved a bigger ratings winner for the BBC than the FA Cup Final, the channel said today.

The FA Cup drew in its lowest viewing figures ever on Saturday when just 6.3m tuned in to BBC1 to watch Arsenal beat Chelsea 2-0.

Audiences for the football peaked at 7.4m, but 7.5m were glued to their screens last night to see Peter Ebdon’s last-gasp victory over Stephen Hendry.

The climax of the competition just before midnight, which Ebdon won 18-17, got a 60% audience share.

The average audience for the match from The Crucible in Sheffield was 5.4 million, according to unofficial overnight figures.

A BBC spokeswoman said: ‘‘Audience figures for the snooker in the run-up to midnight when the match was reaching its climax were fantastic.’’

Saturday’s FA Cup clash at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium was the first time the BBC had secured exclusive terrestrial live coverage since 1997.

That year 11.1 million viewers tuned in, while more than 6.8 million watched last year’s final.

Other football competitions have proved more popular than the FA Cup this year, with 6.6 million people watching this season’s semi-final of the Worthington Cup between Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea.

The BBC blamed the Bank Holiday and the fact that the match was a London derby for the lack of interest.

Meanwhile the women’s FA Cup final was screened by the BBC for the first time yesterday and 2.2 million viewers watched Fulham beat Doncaster Belles 2-1.