Delayed coverage of England's crucial Euro 2004 qualifier against Turkey, together with the start of the Rugby World Cup and the culmination of the Formula 1 season saw free-to-air channel ITV1 and digital offering ITV2 attract significant audiences across the three events.
According to the broadcaster, the Turkey v England game peaked at 5.3m viewers with an average of 4.5m, while England's first match of the Rugby World Cup against Georgia saw a peak of 5.0m viewers, an average of 4.7m and a share of 40 percent.
Live coverage of Michael Schumacher's record-breaking sixth title won in Japan averaged 1.36m (twice as many as last season) with 47.1 percent share, peaking at 1.7m and a share of 61.8 percent. The re-run and highlights attracted another 2.6m viewers.
An ITV spokesman said: "WeB9re delighted with the figures across all three major events and were pleased that so many chose to watch both the England teams in football and rugby on ITV.
"In total we showed no fewer than eight Rugby World Cup matches live on either ITV1 and ITV2 as well as three opportunities to see highlights on each of the days on ITV1, ITV2 and the ITV News Channel."
The figures put forward by ITV include F1 qualifying from Friday and Saturday and live coverage of Rugby World Cup games New Zealand v Italy, Ireland v Romania and South Africa v Uruguay.
UK commercial free-to-air broadcaster ITV has claimed that its line-up of sports content over the last weekend pulled in over 26 million viewers to the network.
