The numbers watching the quarter-final match notched up the biggest audience figures for a Friday morning on any channel in the past 10 years, the BBC said.

An average of 12.4million watched the BBC compared with the average of 3.6million watching ITV.

Defeat was hard to bear

But ITV was pleased to have narrowed the gap with its rival, with a ratio of 3-1 watching the game on BBC compared with the 4-1 that watched England's second-round victory over Denmark last week.

The actual number who watched the England v Brazil match peaked at 16.9m.

It was the highest viewing figures in the World Cup so far, edging ahead of the 16.8m audience watching the Denmark match.

Pubs

The total number of television spectators is likely to have been even higher, with many people gathering together at pubs and other venues to watch the game.

Despite the defeat, there were still those prepared to watch the highlights.

BBC1 had an average audience of 2m for its late evening show with a peak of 3m.

ITV's 8pm-9pm programme on Friday produced an average audience of 2.1m, peaking at 2.4m.