ITV’s coverage of England’s Euro 2024 semi-final win against the Netherlands on Wednesday night attracted a peak of 21.6m viewers across TV and streaming.
This is the highest peak audience on a single channel since December 2022, when the nation watched England’s quarter-final exit on ITV in the Fifa World Cup.
ITVX registered its biggest-ever live-stream audience and the highest live-stream audience of the tournament with 16.8m.
Coverage of the semi-final between 8pm and 9:55pm was seen by an average audience of 19.6m across ITV1 and ITVX, with 12.7m watching the overall coverage between 6.30pm and 10.45pm — equating to a 64% share.
Analysis: Streaming investment paying off
The match was the second consecutive England Euro semi-final to be broadcast by ITV and another occasion when the squad went through to the final.
ITV reported that the Euro 2020 England vs Denmark match garnered a record 27.6m viewers (peak) across ITV, ITV Hub (which became ITVX in 2022) and STV.
This was bigger than the England World Cup semi-final in 2018 and the most-watched football match shown on one channel, according to the broadcaster.
On the streaming front, the coverage attracted 11m streams on ITV Hub (10.5m) and STV Player (0.5m).
Evidently, ITV’s investment into developing ITVX and live-streaming for sports has paid off, with at least 5m more viewers tuning in via streaming for the latest semi-final.
On linear, the Euro 2020 semi-final, which took place on 7 July 2021, peaked with 26.3m viewers on ITV1 with an 89.3% audience share. Overall, it gained an average of 23.9m viewers, or a 82.3% share.
From 6.30pm to 11.24pm it was watched by an average audience of 16.7m viewers — a 70.6% audience share.
ITV’s coverage of that England Euro 2020 semi-final was the most-viewed programme of 2021, with a total of 18.4m tuning in across four screens, according to Barb data. This broke down to 17.67m watching on a TV set, 386,000 on a PC, 232,000 on a smartphone and 112,000 on a tablet.
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