England’s 2-0 victory over Germany in the last 16 of the UEFA Euro 2020 saw a peak television audience of over 2 crores on England’s BBC network. The 2.06 crore television views represented 80% of the share of viewership. It also recorded over 50 lakh streams on its OTT platform, iPlayer, and another 8 lakh views on its website, making the overall audience upwards of 2.7 crores as Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling bagged late goals to bring the 3 lions to the quarter-finals.
The game also saw the highest attendance in Wembley since the pandemic, with over 40,000 fans watching their team get the historic win. Major cricket stars Sam Curran and Indian wicket-keeper, Rishabh were also part of the attendance.
The BBC has not announced an average audience figure for the match. BBC presenter Lizo Mzimba, citing overnight figures from BARB, the UK audience measurement company, tweeted that the television audience for the game at Wembley was over 1.7 crore on average.
In Germany, the match was shown by public-service broadcaster ARD, whose coverage attracted an average audience of 2.74 Crore viewers. ARD’s audience was the highest of the tournament so far in Germany and was equal to a market share of 76.5 percent. ARD’s coverage received an average audience of 1.4 crores (an 84.7-per-cent share) in the target sector of 14 to 49-year-olds.
The BBC will also show England’s quarter-final match against Ukraine on
Saturday. The BBC splits Euro 2020 rights in the UK with commercial broadcaster ITV. ITV broadcast England’s 0-0 draw against Scotland on June 18, with the match attracting an audience of 1.84 crores (a 74-per-cent share) on ITV and STV, its franchise in Scotland. The combined audience on both broadcasters peaked at 2 crores, (a 79-per-cent share).
Brands that sponsored the Euros will be extremely pleased with these numbers as they went above and beyond to partner with the Euros. It is also believed that the numbers will only rise as we go further down to the tournament. Belgium vs Italy will be the most high-octane quarter-final but with Spain, England still all being in the mix it will be interesting to see which game’s viewership will peak.