The BBC’s first live Premier League game attracted a peak TV audience of 3.9 million on Saturday night – a quarter share of the total audience.
Crystal Palace’s 2-0 win against Bournemouth was the first live top-flight football on the BBC since 1988. The Premier League was formed in 1992.
The match had an average audience of 3.6 million and the return of Match of the Day to its regular Saturday night BBC One slot attracted a peak audience of 2.7 million.
The record TV audience for a live Premier League match was 4.04 million for the 2012 Manchester derby on Sky Sports, which was also shown free-to-air.
This has led many to say that the BBC figures were disappointing, with the Mirror’s chief football writer, John Cross, tweeting, “I was expecting a bigger figure.”
However, the BBC pointed out that an additional 660,000 watched digitally, either on the BBC Sport website or iPlayer. The numbers may well be eclipsed when the figures are collated for Sunday’s Merseyside derby, which was shown free-to-air on Sky Sports.
The BBC’s next live match is on Wednesday, when Norwich play against Everton followed by Southampton’s home fixture against Manchester City on July 5.
