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AUDIENCE AVALANCHE
England’s 3-2 soccer World Cup victory over Mexico on Monday delivered the biggest television audience ever recorded in the U.K. for a live broadcast between 2am and 4am BST, with a peak of 9.1 million viewers tuning
into BBC One and BBC iPlayer despite the delayed kick-off. The average audience across the Round of 16 match held at 7.8 million as Jude Bellingham scored twice and Harry Kane converted the decisive penalty to send England into the quarter-finals.
The record was more than triple the previous mark, set during the Rio 2016 Olympics when over 3 million stayed awake to watch Mo Farah’s 10,000m gold alongside Jessica Ennis-Hill’s and Greg Rutherford’s medal-winning performances. Record digital traffic followed: 11.6 million requests across BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and app contributed to iPlayer’s biggest-ever single day with 48 million total requests.
BBC Sport logged more than 330 million social video views – its highest daily total on record – with 65 million of those coming from Kane’s post-match interview with Kelly Somers, in which the England captain had sung Oasis’ “Wonderwall” so enthusiastically he had lost his voice by the final whistle.
ANIMATION ACCLAIM
Animation Nation, Singapore’s longest-running animation festival, has opened submissions for the third annual ANSEA Awards 2026, its regional competition spotlighting animators across all ASEAN member states. Entries are being accepted via FilmFreeway, with shortlisted finalists to be announced ahead of the festival before a dedicated screening and awards announcement at Animation Nation 2026.
The jury is led by Tomm Moore, co-founder and creative director of Cartoon Saloon and a three-time Academy Award-nominated director whose credits include “The Secret of Kells,” “Song of the Sea,” and “Wolfwalkers.” He is joined by Lexie Chu, founder and CEO of Asians in Animation, and Mark Flanagan, an Access:VFX advocate and chair of the Melbourne ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter. Festival director Michael Lim, marking his 10th anniversary year in the role, said the ANSEA Awards had entered their third year as “a vital bridge for Southeast Asian animation talent.”
