Italian players celebrate their victory (Image: Insidefoto /Sipa USA/Andrea Staccioli)

Live sport reigns, OK! Now this is an audience: Italy’s triumph over England in the Euro 2020 certainly grabbed eyeballs in the UK on Sunday night. TV ratings show that at the peak — when the penalty shootout started after extra time — a total of 30.95 million people were watching. That free-to-air overnight audience combined both those watching on BBC One (25 million peak) and ITV (6 million peak), and is among the highest ratings in British broadcasting history, according to UK ratings organisation BARB. It doesn’t include online viewing data which is not yet available.

BARB data shows it topped the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony (27 million peak) and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s coronavirus lockdown address (28 million) in March last year. An average of 29.85 million watched the whole game, making it the highest TV audience since Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997.

In Australia the first part of the final of MasterChef gathered 1.03 million national viewers, but the latest ep of Farmer Wants a Wife just topped it with 1.073 million. Seven took the night narrowly from Nine and Ten. Nine News’ Sydney 6 to 6.30pm averaged 408,000 — the highest figure for any program and one of the largest for some time for a 6pm news broadcast. More than 110,000 extra people watched the breakfast and morning programs yesterday — 48,000 extra for the ABC’s News Breakfast.

Tonight: The Tour de France is back on SBS.

Breakfast: Seven’s Sunrise, 467,000 nationally and 273,000 metro; Nine’s Today, 371,000 and 244,000; News Breakfast, 338,000 and 214,000.

Regional top five: Seven News 665,000; Seven News 6.30, 627,000; Home and Away, 420,000; Farmer Wants a Wife, 414,000; The Chase Australia 5.30pm, 389,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (27.6%)
  2. Nine (24.9%)
  3. Ten (24.3%)
  4. ABC (16.3%)
  5. SBS (6.9%)


Network main channels:

  1. Seven (18.7%)
  2. Nine (17.8%)
  3. Ten (16.9%)
  4. ABC (12.2%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.2%)


Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (4.6%)
  2. 10 Bold (4.1%)
  3. 7TWO (3.1%)
  4. 10 Peach (2.6%)
  5. Gem (2.4%)


Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.799 million
  2. Seven News 6.30 — 1.693 million
  3. Nine News — 1.565 million
  4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.471 million
  5. 7pm ABC News — 1.170 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.111 million
  7. Farmer Wants a Wife (Seven) — 1.073 million
  8. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.053 million
  9. MasterChef finale, part one (Ten) — 1.038 million
  10. 7.30 (ABC) — 1.023 million


Top metro programs: 

  1. Nine News — 1.184 million
  2. Nine News 6.30 — 1.114 million
  3. Seven News — 1.113 million
  4. Seven News 6.30 — 1.066 million


Losers:  None really — no Tour de France …

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.184 million
  2. Nine News 6.30 — 1.114 million
  3. Seven News — 1.113 million
  4. Seven News 6.30 — 1.066 million
  5. 7pm ABC News — 797,000
  6. ACA (Nine) — 783,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 715,000
  8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 527,000
  9. Media Watch (ABC) — 451,000
  10. Four Corners (ABC) — 450,000


Morning (national) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) — 453,000/259,000
  2. Today (Nine) — 371,000/244,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC) — 338,000/214,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 303,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 240,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 88,000


Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: West Coast v North Melbourne (Fox Footy) — 138,000
  2. AFL Monday Night Footy on Fox (Fox Footy) — 91,000
  3. AFL: Monday Night Footy On Fox (Fox Footy) — 79,000
  4. Credlin (Sky News) — 77,000
  5. Paul Murray (Sky News) — 63,000