Sunday’s peak audience watching England’s World Cup record victory over Panama hit 14.1m viewers, with more than three-quarters of people at home watching television tuning into BBC One for the Group G encounter.
Figures released by the BBC on Monday revealed that 82.9 per cent of TV viewers watched England’s 6-1 victory over Panama, which saw captain Harry Kane become just the third player to score a hat-trick at the World Cup for the Three Lions in what is their best-ever win at the tournament.
A further 2.8m live stream requests were made across the BBC’s online platforms.
The viewing numbers are not quite as much as those for the opening 2-1 victory over Tunisia that attracted a peak audience of 18.3m – more than the recent royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – but the difference in viewing figures has been put down to the earlier kick-off on a sunny Sunday afternoon as opposed to Thursday evening’s start time.
The figures do not account for fans who were watching in pubs or big screens, meaning it is likely that the figure is substantially higher.
After the BBC showed England’s first two matches, ITV will broadcast the final Group G game against Belgium this Thursday, which kicks off at 19:00 BST.
The BBC also announced that Sunday’s average viewing figure of 12.8m was 3.8m down on the Tunisia match, but 1.3m up on their coverage of the Royal Wedding.
Sunday’s victory booked England’s place in the World Cup last-16 with a game to spare, but despite the 2014 World Cup and Euro 2016 flops, there appears to be growing optimism among fans that Gareth Southgate’s side are capable of going deep into the tournament for the first time since the semi-final appearance at Italia 1990.
