England Score With Biggest World Cup Viewing Figures

England’s nail biting 2-2 draw with Sweden in Cologne was the most watched match of the World Cup so far, pulling in a staggering 17.9 million adult viewers or an average of 57% of the adult television viewing population.

As Michael Owen suffered an agonising knee injury, which has surely ended his Cup campaign, ITV1 scored the best viewing figures of the tournament so far, as England’s other two matches, against Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago, managed 11.3 million and 14.5 million adult viewers respectively.

With Owen out and Rio Ferdinand damaged, further weight bears down on Wayne Rooney’s shoulders, as a slightly shambolic England squad looks towards Sunday’s game against Ecuador.

Other network television stations were hard-pressed to compete with the match. However, Eastenders on BBC1, which had been moved to the earlier time of 7pm, managed to attract more than six-and-a-half million adult viewers, or 38%, during the game’s preamble.

Channel 4 was also wise, shifting Big Brother to the later time of 10pm, which netted the Reality programme a sizeable average of almost four-and-a-half million adult viewers or almost 23% of the adult viewing share.

A massive 68% of ABC1 Men watched the match, a peak of almost five million, whilst presumably millions more packed out boozers all across England.

Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks, ITV2 and Sky One.

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com