BBC coverage of the Commonwealth Games, hosted in Birmingham, was streamed over 57 million times during the 11-day event, which is more than six times the number seen in previous years. An estimated 28.6 million people in the United Kingdom watched at least some of the BBC coverage on television. Meanwhile, the Women’s Euro 2022 football final had the highest live television audience in the country of the year.
The total of 28.6 million television viewers of the Commonwealth Games was up on the 22.8 million that watched the Gold Coast games in 2018 but less than the total of 35.3 million that watched the Glasgow 2014 event.
The highest peak audience of the 2022 games was for the 100m swimming finals, with 6.6 million, followed by the opening ceremony, with 5.2 million, while the closing ceremony was watched by 4.8 million. The average audience for the opening ceremony was 4.62 million.
The number of online viewers, with 57.1 million stream requests, was far higher than for the Gold Coast, which had a total of 9 million and the Glasgow games with 8.2 million.
Meanwhile, the Women’s Euro 2022 football tournament received 18 million stream requests across the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport web site and app.
An estimated total audience of 27.4 watched at least 15 minutes of the BBC coverage across the tournament.
The final, which saw England beat Germany, had the largest live television audience of the year, with a peak of 17.4 million viewers and a peak share of 78% of the available viewing audience. The average audience for coverage of the match was 11.17 million. It was viewed 5.9 million times online.