Biggest TV audience of the year watches ITV's coverage of Man Utd's win over Liverpool

The biggest television audience of the year across all channels watched ITV’s live, free to air coverage of Manchester United’s win against Liverpool yesterday with a peak of 8.6 million tuning in as the game went into extra-time.

The audience who watched United win a dramatic 4-3 victory over their rivals ended just over a week of major sport events on ITV, which began the previous Saturday with a peak of 6.6 million viewers watching England's sensational late win against Ireland in the most watched game of the tournament.

That was followed by ITV’s coverage of the Cheltenham Festival, which, on its final day on Friday, drew it best overall audience for the full day’s show since 2021, with over one million viewers - the biggest average audience for the festival since 2021 when the country was in lockdown.

On ITVX,the Cheltenham Festival was streamed 3.6 million times - a 13% increase on last year - and ITV’s coverage of the Six Nations was streamed 16.6m times across the tournament, which was up by three million (23%) on 2023.

ITV’s coverage of Manchester United v Liverpool also drew the biggest audience for an FA Cup Quarter-final since 2018.