EURO CHAMPIONSHIPS END ON A HIGH FOR RTÉ, AS THE FINAL SCORES THE HIGHEST-RATING PROGRAMME OF 2021

Sunday’s nail-biting conclusion to RTÉ’s coverage of UEFA EURO 2020 drew an average of 938,000 viewers on RTÉ2 as Italy edged-out England on penalties in the final.

A share of 56% of those watching television at the time were tuned-in to RTÉ2 with 279,000 streams delivered on RTÉ Player. Sunday’s final peaked at 1.1 Million viewers at 22.52 last night. Across pre-match, live and post-analysis the final had a total 1-min reach of 1.6 million.

UEFA EURO 2020 was another huge success for RTÉ.  On RTÉ2 the live games saw an average of 308k & 32.9% share across 46 different games, with final round group games running concurrently on RTÉ2 & RTÉ Player/RTÉ News Channel.

Group Head of Sport, RTÉ Declan McBennett said: “Summer tournaments are always special in their ability to unite the generations into a mass audience sharing a collective experience, and EURO 2020 was no different. RTÉ Sport continues to bring the very best of live sport both domestically and internationally to our audience and we now look forward to similar moments that unify us all across the GAA Championship, the Olympics and the Paralympics.”

RTÉ Sport has provided extensive free-to-air coverage of the whole tournament and audiences at home had the opportunity to get right to the heart of the action, along with highlight programmes, nothing went unseen for fans. Last night Darragh Maloney was joined live in studio by Liam Brady, Damien Duff and Didi Hamann, with commentators George Hamilton and Ronnie Whelan in Wembley Stadium.

RTÉ Player had a record-breaking UEFA Euro 2020 performance with over 2.6 million streams across the tournament, up 30% on Euro 2016.

The final between England and Italy was the most popular game online with almost 280,000 streams and breaking the RTÉ Player record for most concurrent devices streaming. The clash between England and Italy had more than double the volume of streams than the most watched game of Euro 2016.

Despite the Republic of Ireland side not playing in the finals this time, it didn’t stop Irish online audiences devouring 1.7 million hours of soccer in June.

RTÉ Sport will continue with extensive free-to-air offerings right throughout the summer.  We will have unrivalled coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, beginning on July 23, followed by the summer Paralympics beginning on August 24. We will bring the most up-to-date Team Ireland news across television, radio and online and follow our inspiring athletes as well as many of the big international names in the world of sport.

Tomorrow night sees Ireland take on France in Cardiff in the U20’s Six Nations.  RTÉ2 begins with the build up at 4.30 pm.  Racing from the Curragh will be shown on RTÉ One this coming Saturday.

Kerry will face Westmeath in Croke Park for the The Joe McDonagh Cup final which will air on RTÉ2 on Saturday.  The GAA Championship continues to build pace also with the Leinster Hurling Final between rivals Dublin and Kilkenny the same evening.  Both Ulster Football Semi-Finals will take place across the weekend followed by the much-anticipated Munster Hurling Final between neighbours Limerick and Tipperary on The Sunday Game Live.

Create the Future with RTÉ Sport this Summer.  Follow the established and emerging sporting stars of the future across all RTÉ platforms for all the sporting excitement still to come.

RTÉ television:

The top 5 games on TV were as follows, with England factoring heavily:

RTÉ Player – Top 5 live-streamed matches 

1. Final England v Italy (11th July) 279,000
2. Semi-final England v Denmark (7th July) 193,000
3. Semi-final Italy v Spain (6th July) 158,000
4. R16 England v Germany (29th June) 113,000
5. R16 France v Switzerland (28th June) 95,000