Only 5.8m viewers stuck around for whole England v Iran 6-2 victory
Only 5.8m viewers stuck around to watch the whole of England’s 6-2 victory against Iran in its World Cup opening match yesterday.
According to fresh data from ratings body Barb, the lunchtime match raked in far fewer viewers than the Lions’ opening match back in 2018 at the Russia World Cup, as well as the evening match between Wales and the USA.
The England game saw an average UK audience of 7.8m, whilst the 7pm kick-off Wales match saw 9.4m, which peaked at 12.5m viewers on ITV.
More than 21m people tuned in to catch the opener against Tunisia, which ran on the normal summer fixture.
Around 18m watched it live, and an extra three million tuning in via BBC iPlayer.
Yesterday’s figures may have been impacted by the technical difficulties on BBC iPlayer, with football pundit Gary Lineker apologising at half-time for the glitch.