A peak audience of just under 27 million viewers saw England bow out of the 2018 World Cup last night.
England’s semi-final against Croatia ended in disappointment with a 2-1 loss after Extra Time.
England were ahead early on, scoring within the first five minutes, but Croatia equalised in the second half.
The deciding goal came just 10 minutes before the match would’ve gone to penalties, seeing England miss out on the final.
An average audience of just over 20 million watched ITV’s coverage between 7PM and gone 10PM last night.
The match peaked with 26.6 million viewers as the final whistle blew at just after 9:30PM.
The game becomes the most watched TV moment of 2018, overtaking all the previous matches in the tournament so far plus the likes of the Royal Wedding.
In fact, it was the biggest TV audience since the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, which saw an average audience of over 23 million viewers.
England will play their final match of the tournament on Saturday afternoon at 3PM on ITV. The final between Croatia and France airs on Sunday from 4PM.
Not too surprisingly, against the football, ratings for other shows dipped to some all time lows.
Fewer than a million viewers watched The One Show while 1.5 million tuned in for Holby City on BBC One. Repeats of Room 101 and Would I Lie To You in the 9PM hour averaged a million viewers.
1.9 million caught coverage of Wimbledon in the afternoon on BBC One while on BBC Two between 1PM and 8PM averaged 600,000 viewers with a million catching up on the Today At Wimbledon highlights.
Elsewhere, over on ITV2, Love Island continued with 2.6 million viewers after being pushed back to 10PM following the football.