England’s Rugby World Cup exit gave ITV1 its biggest audience of the year with 8.7 million viewers watching the final moment of the Semi-final match, as South Africa edged their way into the final after a late penalty gave them a 16-15 win.
From kick off to final whistle, live coverage was watched by 7.2m and 41 per cent of the available television audience on Saturday night, making it the most watched match of the tournament and the most watched rugby match since England played Scotland in the 2021 Six Nations, also shown on ITV1.
ITV’s Rugby World Cup coverage is led by erstwhile 5 Live voice of football Mark Pougatch, an alumnus of Durham University’s rugby hotbed Hatfield College. It has also been streamed over 50 million times on ITVX so far, including last Sunday’s coverage of the Quarter-Finals between England and Fiji and France and South Africa, which was ITVX’s biggest day of the year with 14 million streams.
The semi-final audience figures do not include ITVX data, which is not yet available.
The Rugby World Cup third-place play off between England and Argentina will be shown live on ITV1 and ITVX on Friday from 7.30pm, and the final between New Zealand and South Africa will be shown on ITV1 and ITVX on Saturday, with coverage from 7pm.
