More than 1.3 million people watched Belgium’s World Cup quarter-final defeat to Spain on RTBF screens, the public broadcaster said on Saturday.
The audience peaked at 22:54, at the final whistle, across television as well as RTBF’s Auvio and RTBF Actus platforms combined.
Belgium conceded the decisive goal late in the match, losing 2-1 and going out of the tournament.
RTBF said detailed viewing figures would not be available until Monday morning. It added that the total does not include the hundreds of thousands of people who followed the match on giant public screens across the country.
Orange Belgium said separately on Saturday that it recorded a “record level of mobile data consumption” during the same game.
The telecom company said mobile data traffic surged by 64% compared with a typical Friday at the same time before the start of the World Cup.
That figure was also 15% higher than the previous record, set on 21 June during the Iran v Belgium match, Orange said.
By contrast, traffic on fixed home networks fell by 13%, while streaming platforms such as Netflix saw traffic drop by 54% compared with a normal Friday.
