England’s Euro 2024 semi-final win over the Netherlands pulled in more than 20m viewers on ITV last night.
The broadcast of England’s dramatic 2–1 victory attracted a peak audience of 20.3m in the UK, making it by far the most watched programme so far this year.
That figure does not include those who streamed the game on ITVX or the many football fans who watched the match in pubs or with friends, so the true number of viewers is likely to be far higher.
And Sunday’s final against Spain could set a new record for the most watched British broadcast of all time.
The data was provided by ratings agency Digital-i and first reported by the Guardian.
The viewing figures for England’s semi-final eclipsed those for the Lionesses Euro 2022 final triumph, which drew a peak of 17.4m viewers on the BBC.
Both are dwarfed by the record UK TV audience, the 32.3m who tuned in for England’s historic 1966 World Cup win.
The only other programmes to break an average audience of 30m were the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997, a documentary on the Royal family which aired on BBC and ITV in 1969.
England’s agonising penalty shoot-out defeat by Italy in the final of Euro 2020 pulled an average of 29.9m viewers and a peak audience of 31m.
Those figures suggest that Sunday’s final against Spain will likely attract 30m viewers and may even threaten the 1966 final’s record audience.
England’s men will bid to win only their second major tournament in Berlin in a match due to kick off at 8pm UK time.
As with previous finals, the game will air live on both the BBC and ITV. Four in five people who watched the Euro 2020 final did so on the Beeb.
Spain’s semi-final win over France on Tuesday night drew a peak audience of 11m on the BBC.