Europeans are still crazy for their soccer, but record championships haven’t had a major impact on the . This past weekend saw second-round matches for Euro 2024 pull in huge audiences across most of Europe’s biggest markets, with the U.K.
, Italy and Spain recording best-ever figures for the tournament. ITV scored big with its coverage of England’s dramatic Sunday night match against Slovakia, with a peak of 18.4 million viewers tuning in.
The match ended in fairytale fashion for the Three Lions, with Jude Bellingham scoring a highlight-reel-worthy bicycle kick goal in the 95th minute to send the match into extra time. Captain Harry Kane’s 2-1 winner sealed the deal for England, which now advance into the quarter-finals. ITV’s audience was a good 3 million more than watched England’s last match of the tournament, against Slovenia, and the biggest TV audience on any channel in the U.
K. for 18 months. ITV’s audience share was 66 percent of total viewers and 89 percent of the 16-34 demographic.
Spain’s more perfunctory, but still dazzlingly impressive, 4-1 win over Georgia on Saturday was also an audience favorite, with just over 9 million, 60.3 percent of the total viewership, tuning in on La 1, making it the most-watched match of the tournament in Spain, and the most-watched show in Spain since the world cup final between Argentina and France on December 18, 2022. In Italy, 11.
7 million viewers, 64.3 percent of the national TV audience, watched in horror on pub.
