PSG – Barcelona breaks historic French record

PSG and Barcelona broke records for French viewing figures in their game on Tuesday night.

PSG and Barcelona have been the best and most exciting teams in Europe since the season started back in August.

The hottest team in Europe this season, against the best team in the competition over the last two years. The clash between them in the Champions League was understandably the most anticipated of the season so far.

Mouth-watering Champions League clash break Canal+ viewing records

Fans in France agreed with that assessment. In a world of very intense, controlled, athletic football, they were promised a feast of attack skill and space on the pitch. The game delivered, a 4-2 win for PSG which could easily have been far heavier (but also saw Barca with multiple chances to level the scores on the break before the killer goal).

The audience figures – peaking at 2.6m viewers, were a record for this stage of the competition, according to RMC Sport. That meant 13% of the people watching TV in France were watching the game.

What is astonishing is that that only made it the third most watched programme on TV that night – a film on France 3 topped the ratings with 3.08m viewers.

Who said linear TV is dead?

In other news…

Despite his injury, PSG want to secure Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to a new contract sooner rather than later.

Desire Doue has received a first verbal offer from PSG over a new contract, and could sign his new deal before too long.

There is no rush to replace Matvey Safonov at PSG, the latest reports are saying.