RTÉ's coverage of the All-Ireland senior hurling final between Cork and Kilkenny attracted an exceptional peak audience of 952,000 viewers, which was 82 per cent of the people watching television at that time.
The average audience for the hurling final was 774,000, a significant increase on last year's figure of 726,000. The 2005 hurling final was the third most watched sports event on RTÉ last year, behind the soccer qualifier between Ireland and France and the All-Ireland football final between Tyrone and Kerry.
A total of 796,000 viewers tuned in, again at the peak audience, for Ireland's 1-0 defeat to Germany last Saturday evening in Stuttgart. The hurling final and soccer international were the top two most watched programmes in Ireland last weekend.
Later on Sunday evening, The Sunday Game programme, which featured a live link-up with Kilkenny's celebrations and RTÉ/Guinness Man of The Match trophy being presented to Aidan Fogarty, also attracted a strong audience which peaked at 365,000, a 35 per cent audience share.
The source for this information is AGB Nielsen, whose figures only account for viewers watching from home.
"The massive audiences tuning in to RTÉ's coverage of these national sporting events is testament to the quality of RTÉ's coverage and the expertise of our presenting, analysis and commentary teams as well as our production values," said RTÉ Head of Sport, Glen Killane.
Meanwhile, the Gala camogie All-Ireland final between Cork and Tipperary on Sunday at Croke Park will be preceded for the first time by the All-Ireland under-21 hurling final which pits Kilkenny against Tipperary.
Tipperary come in as underdogs in both finals with defending camogie champions Cork expected to benefit from the large number of departures from Paddy McCormack's Tipperary panel.
Five of last year's panel who each hold five All-Ireland medals - Therese Brophy, Ciara Gaynor, Deirdre Hughes, Aoife Kennedy and Angie McDermott - retired last year.
"Naturally they were all a massive loss," said McCormack at yesterday's media briefing. "Trying to replace them is impossible but you have to play with the hand you are dealt. And we have."
"In fairness to the girls, they saw this as an opportunity to step up a gear. There is a freshness about the team. You would like to have two new players every year but this year we needed five new players to establish themselves.
"Still, we are back in the final now so we will just have to see."
CORK: A Murray; J O'Callaghan, C Foley, A O'Regan; R Buckley, M O'Connor, A Geary; G O'Connor, B Corkery; R Moloney, A Walsh, J O'Leary; E Dillon, U O'Donoghue, E Burke.
TIPPERARY: J Delaney; S Kelly, U O'Dwyer, J Kirwan; M Shortt, P Fogarty, S Nealon; C Grogan, J Ryan; J Horan, E Hayden, C Hennessy; E McDonnell, L Young, G Kinnane.
