Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

10.7m tune in for Rebecca Adlington's Olympic Games glory

 

Pa
Monday 30 July 2012 14:55 BST
Comments
Rebecca Adlington with her bronze
Rebecca Adlington with her bronze (Getty Images)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

More than 10 million people saw Rebecca Adlington's bronze medal-winning performance for Team GB.

Overnight viewing figures also showed 7.6 million tuned in to see Lizzie Armitstead's rain-sodden finish on The Mall as she became the first British athlete to make the medals table for London 2012.

Adlington added to her two 2008 gold medals when she finished third in the 400m freestyle final last night, with 10.1 million watching on BBC1 and 600,000 watching on one of the BBC's dedicated Olympics channels.

Earlier in the day, Armitstead collected the silver in the women's cycling road race.

Red-faced BBC Olympics boss Roger Mosey apologised after he confused Adlington's medal in a message on Twitter as he hailed the viewing figures.

He told followers Adlington had won a gold, correcting himself a little later by saying: "Sorry, I do of course mean bronze for Rebecca."

The figures also show the impact the BBC's domination of the sporting spectacle is having on viewing figures for other channels.

ITV1 - usually the main rival to BBC1 - had an all-day average of just 680,000 viewers on Saturday, the first day of competition. It drew just 6.2% of viewers during the day, thought to have been one of the channel's lowest ever shares.

It was only marginally ahead of the digital channel BBC3 - which is being used as a sports channel for the duration of the games - which was only 30,000 viewers behind.

The latest figures come on the heels of the huge audience for the opening ceremony on Friday night which drew 26.9 million viewers at its peak.

The average audience for the ceremony was 22.4 million, the highest on BBC1 since 1996.

PA

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in