SBS reaped its second-largest audience on Monday night, with 2.17 million people tuning in to watch Australia beat Japan 3-1, and notch its first World Cup win.

Only the World Cup qualifying victory against Uruguay last November has delivered more viewers to the multicultural broadcaster.

In Melbourne the average audience was 593,000, which represented 69.3 per cent of all viewers ¡ª slightly above the national figure of 68.4 per cent.

Broadcast live from Germany, the game began at 10.50pm and finished in spectacular form just after 1am.

Interestingly, the national peak audience of 2.57 million was registered at 11.40pm, suggesting many viewers switched off at half-time, believing Australia would lose the game.

"It's a spectacular result. A match being broadcast late on a Monday night has achieved a national audience on a par with a prime time NRL grand final," SBS said in a statement.

"It shows just how much the Socceroos and the World Cup have captured the Australian public's imagination."

In March, Nine's coverage of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Melbourne attracted a peak audience of 4.09 million viewers and an average of 3.47 million over the ceremony's more than 2? hours.