Meanwhile, back to actual figures instead of fabricated facts, some figures during the clash:

BBC One between 22:30 and 23:30 averaged 12.01m (59.2%)

BBC Two - 22:30 - TOTP2: 639k (3.2%)
ITV - 22:30 - Road Rage Britain: 636k (3.1%) exc HD and +1
Channel 4 - 21:00 - FILM: Forrest Gump: 900k (4.5%) exc +1
Channel 5 - 23:00 - Big Brother: Bit on the Psych: 335k (1.7%) exc +1

Could be the first 20m+ plus audience since The London Olympics.

Sam Hodges @Sam_Hodges · 23m

Nearly 14m (13.7m/85.9%) made it to the end of #EnglandvsItaly at 00.45 this morning on @BBCOne

Nothing will change in English football while the Premier League is run in the way it is.
I have been pessimistic all along and dont see anything to change my mind.

Interesting. Ch5 doesn't seem too hit by the footie at least surprisingly. Last Saturday BOTP was at 390k, so 335k against England is not that bad. Hopefully that means that it didn't go sub 800k for the main show last night!

I am the same. The English squad are too self obsessed and money driven. They belong in the richest football league on the planet, who's goal is to make huge profits for its stake holders and as long as the footballers continue earning ridiculously high salaries for what is, in effect, kicking a ball around for an hour and a half, then their passion to win is not going to be as high on a list as maintaining their glamorous lifestyle.

When you get to the point where the person running the entire country earns a huge £160,000 per year, (that's £160,000 PER YEAR) and whether your politics are the same or not, that's actually not very much for the responsibility - and then you get premiership footballers earning £160,000 PER WEEK, how on earth can people say they do it for the passion of playing for their country?

It's obscene, it's corrupt and it's totally immoral. All of us who feel disappointed by England's performance and while we're struggling to pay our bills and buy groceries, well, we don't need to worry. Because even though they do badly, those poor, deflated footballers of ours will earn ten times your salary for losing, so at least they won't go hungry!

And Phil Neville is still trending on twitter!

Well to be honest, if they weren't being paid 160k a week, people would still be struggling to buy food and pay bills lol. The football clubs wouldn't start giving away the money.

Great share and rating for the game. Was expecting a little higher average but peak was brilliant.

The sort of people who don't just watch BB but watch the spin off show as well will be die hard fans who would watch no matter what, so it's no surprise it didn't drop much.

Last nights football share, will be the highest we will see for many years now, until the next time a football match takes place out of hours.

Hopefully they get the message and pull him from all future games. Horrid to listen to.

Great numbers for the England match as expected.

Can I join you in those sentiments?

You miss the point Hollie. It's not about us not paying the bills. It's about the footballers earning so much money there genuinely is little incentive for them to be passionate about what they're doing. If they got a small wage per year, (say £120,000 which is still a good wage for playing football - they're not surgeons or save people's lives), but upon getting results, like winning international matches, they get a good bonus, that is incentive and encouragement. But because they earn silly money anyway, it matters not whether they win or lose.

It was a great figure for the game though. Probably end up being BBC1's highest rating of the year.

Absolutely mossy! It'll be a pleasure.

Our usual twitter correspondent has overlooked this.

If England do get through to the 2nd round, hopefully they will bin him off and get someone else in, even Lawro.

Well, ofcourse they are...a match between Uruguay or Spain is hardly going to outrate the first England match
It would have got the same figure if it was on BBC2, ITV, CH4 or Five

Interesting - but way off topic for a ratings thread.

Sorry, got a bit carried away!

Even excluding the England game, the BBC are winning the ratings war so far. If the England game had been on BBC2/C4/C5, it would not have rated quite as well as it did on BBC1 yesterday due to those channels' lower weekly reaches. Some people refuse to watch a broadcast on BBC2/C4/C5, we see it every year with Wimbledon ratings when Murray plays on bbc2 and then he's switched to bbc1, the ratings increase.

As is telling people they are off topic to be fair

Who has the next England game? ITV or BBC?

There isn't a ratings war over the World Cup Samuel. There's very very little either broadcaster can do to improve viewing figures of a football match. And as the BBC are publicly funded, they shouldn't be entering into any kind of ratings war IMO.

The next England game is being shown live and exclusive ONLY on ITV this Thursday from 7pm.

The next England match won't reach the shares of last night, but I reckon an average of ~17m?

People who don't know football claiming England played poorly...

Actually they played very well, losing the game narrowly.

Thanks similar figures expected?

Not too bad overall there in primetime. Certainly 20%+ against the football. Pointless repeat back over 4m and 23.5% share that should please all those calling for it to be axed.