4m watch first live Premier League on BBC
June 22, 2020
The first ever live Premier League match to air on terrestrial television attracted a peak audience of nearly 4 million on June 20th.
The game between Bournemouth and Crystal Palace on BBC One pulled in 3.9 million viewers, making up almost a quarter of the UK’s TV audience. In addition to its live TV audience, more than 660,000 people watched the game across the iPlayer and BBC Sport digital platforms.
The figure comes close, but doesn’t quite set a new Premier League viewing record – as many had predicted – which belongs to the Manchester City vs Manchester United derby in 2012 which had a peak audience of 4 million on Sky Sports.
The BBC will have three more attempts at setting a new Premier League audience record. They will air Norwich vs Everton on June 24th as well as Southampton vs Manchester City on July 5th. A fourth match is TBC.