England’s Euro 2024 semi-final victory over the Netherlands was watched by a peak audience of 20.3 million on ITV, becoming easily the most-watched television programme of the year. Broadcasters are hoping more than 30 million viewers will watch Sunday night’s final against Spain, based on the numbers that tuned in for England’s defeat in the Euro 2020 final. The overnight viewing figures, provided by the ratings agency Digital-i, do not include the millions of people who were streaming the match on ITVX or watching in public places. Coverage of Euro 2024 in the UK is split between the BBC and its commercial rival ITV, with the two channels trading first choices for matches in each round. ITV executives cheered Jordan Pickford’s success in saving a Swiss penalty, which secured the channel another lucrative England match and will have delivered a substantial advertising boost to the channel. Both channels will show the final, with about a fifth of viewers usually choosing to watch ITV over the BBC. Euro 2024 has shown how sport is one of the few types of broadcasting that can still lure people away from streaming services and bring in enormous live audiences, especially when it is free to watch. Even matches not involving the home nations have delivered substantial audiences, with a peak of 11 million people watching the Spain v France semi-final on BBC One. The Euros are one of the UK’s “crown jewel” sporting events – along with other contests such as the football World Cup, Wimbledon and the Olympics – which are required by law to be shown on free-to-air channels. Other sports have chosen to prioritise the higher funding available from pay TV channels in return for substantially lower audiences for international matches. The England and Wales cricket board ran a successful lobbying campaign in the 2000s to stop England test matches being added to the free-to-air list. As a result, Jimmy Anderson’s farewell match against the West Indies at Lords – broadcast behind a paywall on Sky – attracted a peak audience of only about 700,000 viewers.