Multi-million TV Audiences for 2008 Championship – Get ready for 2009!!!

The largest global audience for darts watched Mark Webster become the third Welshman to be crowned BDO World Professional Darts Champion - but the first ever from North Wales - and Anastasia Dobromyslova crowned the first ever Russian BDO World Professional Women^s Darts Champion.

BBC viewing figures for the Lakeside Men^s final peaked at 4.1 million, which represented a 15% share of the overall audience.

Throughout Lakeside week there was an average BBC audience of 1.5 million, with peaks of 1.7 million for the live Ted Hankey/Steve West match, and 2.1 million for the epic battled between defending 2007 Champion Martin Adams and 2007 World Masters Champion Robert Thornton of Scotland.

The two live Semi-Finals enjoyed audiences of 2.6 million and 2.1 million respectively and every single dart thrown was seen by digital viewers to BBCi.

In addition, the global audience was enhanced by comprehensive coverage from SBS-6 in Holland, by Eurosport (available in 104 million outlets worldwide) and to some seventy countries via BBC Worldwide. Collectively, this produced the largest TV audience for darts anywhere in the world.

Mark Webster lives in Denbigh and plays his County darts for Clywd, as does Anastasia, the Russian darts sensation who ended the magnificent seven year unbeaten reign of England^s Trina Gulliver.

"Bringing it home to Wales also fills me with pride - but even more so to be the first ever World Champion from North Wales, and the first left-hander to win the title since Les Wallace in 1997.

Mark is the only player from North Wales to win the most famous title in world darts. The first ever BDO World Professional Darts Champion was the late Leighton Rees in 1978, and 17 years later Richie Burnett took the title back to Wales in 1995. Both were from the Welsh Valleys.

So were getting ready for a real hot 2009 World Championship as Mark & Anastasia look to defend their titles.