England’s dramatic extra-time win over Italy in soccer’s UEFA Women’s Euro on Tuesday night (July 22) delivered commercial broadcaster ITV’s biggest peak audience of the year across its linear and digital platforms.

The viewership for the Lionesses’ 2-1 semi-final victory over Italy peaked at 10.2 million across all devices on ITV.

The match averaged 8 million viewers, from kick-off until the final whistle, delivering ITV’s biggest audience amongst all adults and the 16-34 demographic for overnight ratings for the year so far, the broadcaster has claimed.

England’s victory on Tuesday night is also ITVX’s biggest day this year with 17.2 million streams. 

In Italy, meanwhile, the country's semi-final defeat was watched by just over 4 million viewers on the Rai 1 channel, securing an audience share of 27.4% for the public service broadcaster. 

The win put the defending champions into a second consecutive final of the continental national teams tournament, and England's third major final in a row after also reaching the same stage in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, losing to Spain.

A rematch with Spain is on the cards as the reigning World Cup winners face Germany in the other semi-final tonight, to be shown by the BBC public service broadcaster.

ITV and the BBC are sharing rights to the women's soccer tournament and will simultaneously broadcast the final on July 27.

For England’s penalty shootout win over Sweden in the quarter-final, the BBC attracted a peak audience of 7.4 million on the main BBC One channel and nearly 3 million online streams across the BBC iPlayer platform, BBC Sport website, and the app.