Much like the rest of the tournament before it, the semi-finals of European soccer’s UEFA European Champions delivered high, if not record, viewership across the four remaining competing countries.
The most notable viewership tally was in England, where the national team’s 2-1 victory over the Netherlands last night (July 10) drew an average of 19.6 million viewers on commercial broadcaster ITV’s primary ITV1 channel.
Viewership peaked on ITV with 21.6 million viewers, the largest single-channel figure for the broadcaster since England’s quarter-final of the 2022 World Cup.
The game also performed well on the ITVX streaming service, which drew 16.8 million streams. Overall coverage of the game, inclusive of punditry, held a 64% viewership share and a 12.7 million viewer average showcasing massive national interest in the game.
The winning team in the other semi-final, Spain, also drew strong viewership on the free-to-air commercial broadcaster La 1 (owned by state-owned media group Television Europa) where an average of 11.6 million viewers tuned in, equating to a 71.7% audience share.
This was marked by a peak of 13.9 million, with both Spain and England anticipating even higher viewership for their final matchup on July 14, with ITV anticipating over 30 million viewers.
Despite being on the losing end of the result against England, the second semi-final match was also the most watched of the tournament so far in the Netherlands where public broadcaster NOS drew 7.8 million total viewers across all of its platforms, 6.9 million of which were via linear television.
Meanwhile in France, who’s national team lost 2-1 to Spain, drew an average of 16.12 million viewers on TF1 for the match, the highest for a broadcast in 2024 in the country.
Although co-broadcaster BeIN Sports has not yet released its figures, the number of total viewers over both networks will naturally be even higher, with the national audience share already totaling 61.2%.
Spain and England will face off in Berlin on Sunday for the Euro 2024 climax. England will be seeking to win the trophy for the first time, while Spain will be eyeing a fourth triumph in the competition.
