Italy’s triumph over England in the Euro 2020 final was watched by a peak audience of 31 million viewers in the UK.
That audience high combines both those watching on BBC One (25M) and ITV (6M), and is among the highest ratings in British broadcasting history, according to BARB figures supplied by overnights.tv.
Even without online viewing data, the Euro 2020 final beat top broadcasts in recent history, including the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony (27M peak) and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s seismic coronavirus lockdown address (28M viewers) in March 2020.
The 31M peak audience came as the match went to penalties, during which England players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka all suffered the heartache of missing their spot-kicks.
Overall, BBC One’s coverage averaged 17.8M viewers from 6.20PM to 11.40PM, while ITV managed 4M viewers from 6.30PM to just before midnight. Combined, this meant that an average of 82% of the available UK television viewing population was watching the game.
