How did the Colombians see this qualifying round?

On Thursday, November 14, Friday, November 15, and Tuesday, November 19, a new round of qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup was played. This consisted of 10 matches between South American teams to determine the positions in the table. The Colombian team participated in two matches against Uruguay and Ecuador, obtaining unfavorable results in both.

The matches had not only the highest ratings of the last week but of all of November. Only the broadcast on Canal Caracol of the Colombia – Uruguay match, which took place on Friday, obtained a rating of 34.72. If we take into account the broadcast on RCN (with a rating of 8.61) the accumulated rating is 43.33, which means that it was seen by four out of ten Colombians. Tuesday's match (Colombia – Ecuador) also had an excellent performance with a rating on Canal Caracol of 27.42 and 6.92 on RCN.

Interestingly, the matches immediately after the Colombian national team's also had high ratings. In this case, the highest audience was the Brazil-Uruguay match that was played on Tuesday with a rating of 18.63 on Caracol. The Friday match between Chile and Peru had a rating of 15.37 on Caracol alone. One possible explanation for this behavior is that the teams that played on Tuesday are more attractive to audiences because they have a higher level. Another possible explanation is that viewers on Friday continued with their nighttime activities other than the matches.

Of the rest of the matches broadcast, only Argentina-Paraguay stands out, which had a rating of 15.44 on Caracol and 3.68 on RCN. The Venezuela-Brazil and Bolivia-Paraguay matches had even lower ratings. In all the matches, the broadcast of Gol Caracol has a higher rating than that of Futbol RCN. The matches that were not shown on Colombian television were: Bolivia – Ecuador, Argentina – Peru and Chile – Venezuela. Below is a summary of the ratings for the matches broadcast, broken down for each channel that broadcast them.

It is also important to highlight the dominance of Caracol in the transmission of sports, as it obtained significantly higher ratings than the rest of the channels. The fact that the matches covered a fraction of prime time (7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.) also contributed to the views; from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the case of the Friday match and 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. for the Tuesday match. It is clear that most Colombians prefer to watch the match on a weekend, as can be seen from the difference in ratings between Friday and Tuesday.

In conclusion, the importance of soccer for Colombians is clear. Matches are an ideal time for the transmission of advertisements if they are to have a good reach. On behalf of the National Consulting Center, we wish the Colombian National Team much success in its next matches that will take place in March 2025.

Team Centro Nacional de Consultoría