BBC commands audience of 5.7m to set new record for live Premier League match audience
The BBC claimed a new record for the UK’s most watched Premier League match after announcing 5.7 million people saw Southampton beat Manchester City.
Free-to-air Sunday night top-flight football continued to prove a ratings hit two weeks after Sky Sports claimed a record audience for the Merseyside derby of 5.5m.
The BBC said the latest milestone included those who tuned in to watch live across all its platforms, not just on BBC One.
Steve Rudge, BBC lead executive football, said: “Having the Premier League on the BBC has been great for our viewers and we were delighted to deliver this compelling game to the widest free-to-air audience as BBC Football continues to capture the drama of the Premier League and the FA Cup.”
Since the world’s richest league resumed behind closed doors in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, it has enjoyed three of its biggest ever ratings.
The BBC attracted 3.9m viewers for its first ever live Premier League game on the opening weekend of Project Restart, Crystal Palace’s 2-0 victory over Bournemouth, as well as 660,000 live programme requests across iPlayer and its digital platforms.
That left it open to interpretation whether it had eclipsed the record 4.4m who tuned in for the April 2012 Manchester derby on Sky Sports, a figure that did not include the mobile or digital audience on Sky Go.
Sunday’s match was the third of four awarded to the BBC under Project Restart, its final game being Burnley v Wolverhampton Wanderers on July 15.
The Corporation, Sky and Amazon are all showing fixtures free-to-air as part of the Government’s insistence that Premier League football could only return if all remaining 92 matches were broadcast live and around a third were freely available.
This was to help ensure fans did not congregate to watch matches in contravention of social distancing guidelines.
