ITV was left counting the cost of England’s early exit from the Rugby World Cup after England’s dead rubber against Uruguay had just over 4 million viewers, less than half the audience for the home team’s defeats by Wales and Australia.
England’s 60-3 win over the south American team, rendered meaningless by those two earlier defeats, had a match average of 4.1 million viewers, with just 3.5 million (17.4%) tuning in across three hours of coverage from 7.15pm on Saturday.
It was down from the 10.2 million match average for the previous Saturday’s 33-13 defeat by Australia , and the 10.4 million who saw England get beaten by Wales, the biggest TV audience for a rugby match for eight years.
ITV had been hoping for more of the same to turn round a year that has seen a big drop in year-on-year ratings, but will now look to Wales, Ireland and Scotland to boost interest in the competition.
Earlier, Wales outperformed England for a second time when a match average of 5.1 million viewers watched their 15-6 defeat by Australia, leaving the Welsh side with a quarter final against South Africa.
ITV’s coverage, beginning at 4.30pm on Saturday, averaged 4.7 million viewers, a 30.5% share of the audience.
England’s early exit provided some respite for BBC1’s Saturday night line-up, which it had been expecting would be under the cosh for much of October.
Instead, Strictly Come Dancing bounced back to 8.9 million viewers (43.5%) from 7.9 million (38%) last week, while Doctor Who regenerated to 4.4 million viewers, a 21.5% share, after two weeks in which it had an overnight average of 3.7 million.
