MUMBAI: It has been 10 days since the FIFA World Cup started and the excitement is only rising for fans and official broadcaster, Sony Six.

According to inputs provided by the channel, 14.8 million viewers have switched on to the channel to watch the games despite the fact that three of the five games take place post midnight.

For the ninth week now, Sony Six has retained its position as the number one sports channel in India, it claims.

Meanwhile, MSM group’s regional channel Sony Aaath providing live Bengali commentary during the matches in West Bengal has proved to be a brilliant business move for the channel. Five million viewers from Kolkata tuned in to watch the games being held in Brazil versus 4.6 million viewers that had tuned in during the 2010 World Cup. Similarly, 1.6 million viewers from the rest of Bengal watched versus 1.2 million viewers who tuned in last time.

Beyond the metros, the ratings have been positive in towns with a population of more than 10 million, while towns within the population range one to 10 million homes have registered a growth of six per cent.

With most games being showcased during the primetime at 9:30 pm, the response so far for the channel has been positive.

Meanwhile, the FIFA World Cup seems to be breaking viewership records in several countries, FIFA has revealed.  34.1 million Japanese viewers tuned into watch their country get deafeated 2-1 by Ivory Coast on NHK at 10 am when the match was telecast. TV Globo reported that  42.9 million Brazillian viewers watched the host nation beat Croatia 3-1. The story in the US was no different with 11.1 million Americans watching Uncle Sam play with Ghana on ESPN.

Audiences were also glued to their TV sets in both Italy and England as the former beat the latter 2-1. The viewership numbers for the BBC were 14.2 million for the match, while RAI1 in Italy notched up 12.8 million viewers - the highest TV viewership in 2014 for both the countries. In Germany, ARD channel lured 26.4 million  viewers as it beat Portugal 4-1.