England’s run at Uefa Euro 2020 continues to break viewing records, with the national football team’s 4-0 win over Ukraine in the quarter-finals on Saturday pulling in a peak television audience of 20.9 million on the BBC, the UK public-service broadcaster.
That figure made the game the UK’s most-watched live television event of the year, with an 81.8-per-cent market share of the evening’s audience. In addition, the match at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome attracted 5.2 million live streams across the BBC iPlayer and BBC website combined.
The average television audience was 19.8 million, according to figures from the BBC.
Saturday’s match narrowly eclipsed the figures the BBC generated for its coverage of England’s round-of-16 game. The 2-0 victory over Germany on June 29 attracted a peak television audience of 20.6 million. The BBC also registered a record 5.6 million streams for the match on iPlayer.
The 20.6 million television viewers represented an 80.1-per-cent share. Including viewers on the BBC Sport website, the overall audience total was more than 27 million.
The BBC splits Euro 2020 rights in the UK with commercial broadcaster ITV. Prior to the Ukraine and Germany games, the viewing record stood for the group stage game against Scotland on June 18.
ITV broadcast the goalless draw, with the match attracting an audience of 18.4 million viewers (a 74-per-cent share) on ITV and STV, its franchise in Scotland. The combined audience on both broadcasters peaked at 20 million (a 79-per-cent share).
ITV will broadcast Wednesday’s semi-final against Denmark, with the Euro 2020 final on Sunday to be televised by both the BBC and ITV.
