World Cup: England v Uruguay Scores Biggest UK TV Audience Since 2012 Olympics

Spoiler Alert if you haven’t seen match…

UPDATED: It was a bad night for England, but a good night for ITV. Uruguay’s 2-1 defeat of the Three Lions was watched by a massive peak of 20.29M viewers for a 70.7% share. That’s the UK’s biggest TV audience since the 2012 Olympics in London. The match averaged 18.51M viewers and a 67.8% share starting at 8 PM local. The full coverage, including pre-game and halftime, averaged 13.29M for a 55.5% share.

ESPN this morning reported a 2.7 metered market average for England-Uruguay, up a tick from the Spain-Chile game the day before and three tenths ahead of the Japan-Greece matchup that was the late game yesterday. Today’s matches see Italy play Costa Rica; Switzerland and France face off; and Honduras meet Ecuador.

Meanwhile, there are some fresh numbers for overall coverage. As we’ve been reporting, the tournament in the U.S. is rating higher than the 2010 South Africa event. That’s partly down to the time zone being more favorable, while Team USA’s win and the preponderance of Latin American sides don’t hurt. Through the first 20 matches of the tournament, ESPN says its networks are averaging a 2.4 U.S. rating and 3.835M viewers. That’s an increase of 26% and 31%, respectively, from the first 20 matches in 2010. Spanish-language network Univision says its Deportes coverage has reached 42M total viewers thus far and is outscoring its 2010 coverage by 43% among total viewers and 29% among adults 18-49.