Tuned in Sport bucks the trend and passes the screen test in trying times

There was an undisputed winner of the summer of sport, which ended last night as the most spectacular Paralympics in living memory came to a close. Sport, and the way it keeps so many of us watching - especially in a world where TV viewing figures increasingly resemble Tom Daley diving off a 10-metre platform.

- Sean Ingle

The numbers were staggering: 23.8 million across BBC and ITV for England's Euro 2024 final defeat, the highest UK audience of the year. The BBC's Olympics coverage topped the charts for 17 consecutive days, with 5 million to 7 million viewers. Channel 4 also enjoyed Paralympics audiences that regularly hopped over a million.

Broadcast TV figures have plummeted by 26% since 2015 - yet sport is the ratings winner that bucks the trend. Over the same period, it has fallen just 3%.

Some of that is due to big falls in highlight shows, with Sky recently posting record figures for its live Premier League coverage. All of us will have our favourite moments from the summer: Jude Bellingham's survive-or-die overhead kick against Slovakia, igniting a previously moribund England; a men's 1500m final for the ages in Paris; Carlos Alcaraz dissecting Novak Djokovic with a matador's relish at Wimbledon, before the Serb got revenge at the Olympics. But the fact is we watched it in our droves.