Telly takeover: Bumper night for ITV as viewers flock to Euros and Love Island
Many Brits were left with a telly dilemma last night after the return of hit dating show Love Island clashed with an epic Euros showdown between France and Switzerland.
But while fans were forced to take their pick of the drama, the real winner of the night was ITV, which screened both events.
The broadcaster pulled in a combined peak of 13.6m viewers for both Love Island and the France match, winning a 45 per cent of the audience for 16 to 34-year-olds in peak time.
Love Island, which returned for its seventh series last night, secured a peak audience of 3.3m viewers across all devices — in line with its last series debut in 2019.
With 1m viewers on ITV Hub, it was also a new launch record for the show. The episode attracted 2.9m streams in total, with catch-up viewing expected to push this figure higher.
The large audience for France’s footballing clash came after a peak of 8.5m viewers tuned into Spain’s game against Croatia and capped off a dramatic night of football at the Euros that saw 14 goals across two fixtures.
It came despite a flood of complaints about ITV Hub, with viewers taking to social media to complain about connection issues.
In a statement yesterday ITV said it was experiencing technical difficulties and was working on restoring service as soon as possible.
The boom in viewer numbers will come as a major boost to the public service broadcaster, which has pinned its hopes on a bumper summer of TV.
The channel, which suffered a slump in advertising revenue at the height of the pandemic last year, has forecast June revenue to rise as much as 90 per cent this month thanks to the Euros and Love Island.