Ronnie O’Sullivan lifted a sixth World Championship title.

Snooker’s 2020 Betfred World Championship achieved record viewing figures.

The semi-final between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Selby on the evening of Friday August 14^th was broadcast on BBC Four and peaked at 2.27 million viewers with an average audience of 1.7 million, the highest ever recorded for the channel.

Earlier in the same day, a 2.98 million peak audience watched the other amazing semi-final between Kyren Wilson and Anthony McGill on BBC Two, the highest achieved during the 17 day event.

The World Championship achieved strong coverage across all BBC platforms, with 17.1 million online viewing requests on the BBC Sport website and the iPlayer (up from 11.8million in 2019), further coverage on the red button and extensive reporting on Radio 5 Live.

WST Chairman Barry Hearn said: “We are delighted to see these figures as they show that snooker continues to be a massively popular sport for viewers on the BBC. And the numbers are up on last year – compared to 2019 we can see growth in the number of live broadcast hours, the average audience, the average programme reach and the overall peak. The British public’s love of snooker is an ever-flourishing relationship.

“Perhaps most impressive are the figures on BBC Four as every televised programme from the World Championship had an above-average audience share for this channel.

“Staging the World Championship – particularly with a small crowd for the final – took a Herculean effort from everyone concerned and the many millions of fans who watched it live have shown their gratitude from their armchairs.

“We love working with the BBC, the quality of their production is superb and their innovative approach to covering this year’s event under unique circumstances paid off. We look forward to improving on these figures again next year!”