18.4 million viewers watched Harry Kane's winner for England as ITV scores biggest audience for two years

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But we wonder how many of them actually enjoyed the game?!

Harry Kane celebrates after scoring Euro 2024 winner against Slovakia
(Image credit: Getty Images)

A peak audience of 18.4 million watched Harry Kane score England's extra-time winner against Slovakia in ITV's biggest viewing figure for two years.

In a TV age where an audience of three million is considered great, football still scores enormous figures, with an average audience of 15.6 million tuning in for England's Euro 2024 game on Sunday evening. 

Whether the audience enjoyed the match is another matter! England were mostly awful until Jude Bellingham scored a wonderful overhead kick in the 95th minute to level the match 1-1. That took the game into extra time where Kane netted a rather less spectacular header to take England into a quarter-final clash on Saturday against Switzerland. 

Jude Bellingham scores against Slovakia with an overhead kick

Jude Bellingham produced the goal of the tournament (Image credit: Getty Images)

Saturday’s England match against Switzerland will be shown on BBC One and iPlayer. Coverage runs from 4.30 pm to 7.15 pm with kick-off at 5 pm. England will surely need to play a lot better against Switzerland, who came second in their group behind Germany and above Hungary and Scotland, before producing an excellent display to eliminate holders Italy with a 2-0 win courtesy of goals by Remo Freuler and Ruben Vargas.

ITV also netted great ratings for the Spain v Georgia game, peaking at 8.9 million. To put the England game in context, the viewing figures were only slightly less than the 18.8 million who watched The Coronation coverage last year on ITV and the BBC. While the biggest drama of 2023, Happy Valley season 3, attracted just over 10 million viewers on the BBC. So, you can see why the BBC and ITV give football so much space in the schedules, although obviously, that doesn't please everyone, especially soap fans who see their favourite shows move all over the place.

Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) in her police gear

Happy Valley was a huge hit, but can't match the viewing figures for the football (Image credit: BBC/Lookout Point/Matt Squire)

ITV's Euro coverage continues with coverage of the France v Belgium match from 3.45 pm today (Monday, July 1] on ITV1 and ITVX).  Meanwhile, BBC One and BBC iPlayer tonight are showing Portugal v Slovenia (Kick-off 8.00 pm). Then on Tuesday, BBC One is showing Romania v Netherlands (Kick-off 5.00 pm) while ITV has Austria v Turkey (Kick-off 8.00 pm). See our TV guide for full listings.

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David Hollingsworth
David Hollingsworth
Editor

David is the What To Watch Editor and has over 20 years of experience in television journalism. He is currently writing about the latest television and film news for What To Watch.

Before working for What To Watch, David spent many years working for TV Times magazine, interviewing some of television's most famous stars including Hollywood actor Kiefer Sutherland, singer Lionel Richie and wildlife legend Sir David Attenborough. 

David started out as a writer for TV Times before becoming the title's deputy features editor and then features editor. During his time on TV Times, David also helped run the annual TV Times Awards. David is a huge Death in Paradise fan, although he's still failed to solve a case before the show's detective! He also loves James Bond and controversially thinks that Timothy Dalton was an excellent 007.

Other than watching and writing about telly, David loves playing cricket, going to the cinema, trying to improve his tennis and chasing about after his kids!