TV Overnights: BBC One’s Match of the Day Live scores a high of 7.4m viewers

BBC One’s Match of the Day Live coverage of the Greece v Argentina game secured a high of more than 7.4 million viewers during prime time last night.

The 90-minute game pulled in more than 5.8 million average viewers and a 28% audience share for BBC One between 7pm and 10pm, finishing off the channel’s sporting Tuesday line-up.

BBC One’s Wimbledon 2010 coverage also banked the peak audience for parts of the afternoon, hitting a high of 2.7 million viewers.  The first-round matches in the men’s and ladies’ singles attracted 1.4 million average viewers and a 16.4% share between 1.45pm and 6pm.

BBC Two continued to show live coverage of the second day’s play at Wimbledon from 5.15pm onwards, although it was the coverage of the chancellor George Osborne’s emergency budget speech at Westminster that dominated the midday ratings.  Over 1.5 million peak viewers tuned in to BBC Two to watch The Budget 2010.

Over on ITV1, the France v South Africa match pulled in over 3.1 million peak viewers and a  27.5% average share from 2.30pm onwards, while ITV4’s coverage of the Group A game between Mexico v Uruguay picked up a high of 188,000 viewers.

Later on in the evening, ITV1’s hour-long Emmerdale attracted more than 5.6 million peak viewers and a 30.6% share between 7pm and 8pm, before Piers Morgan On Marbella settled on 2.5 million average viewers and a 12% share.

ITV1’s peak-hour crime drama The Bill banked 2.8 million average viewers and a 12.6% share between 9pm and 10pm.  At the same time, Channel 4’s Inside Nature’s Giants: The Big Cats picked up 1.3 million viewers, while Five’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation secured 1.1 million viewers.

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 and key multi-channel stations.