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BBC Sport’s online coverage also set new records, reaching 68m unique browsers in the United Kingdom, and over 100m globally. The most popular streamed event was the men’s singles tennis final, in which 1.7m browsers followed Britain’s Andy Murray as he retained his Olympic title by beating Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina.In Germany, ARD achieved the highest audience of the Games for live coverage of the women’s beach volleyball, as 8.55 million viewers watched Germany’s semi-final victory over Brazil. This equated to a 28.7% audience share – more than double the channel’s primetime average of 13.5%.Broadcasters in France aired substantially more coverage of Rio 2016 than of any previous Olympic Games, with a total of 2,025 hours available compared with 1,179 hours for London 2012. The highest audience of the Games in France was 5.602 million viewers for FR3’s live coverage of the men’s +100 kg judo final, which saw French hero Teddy Riner claim gold. The share of viewing achieved by this 18-minute broadcast was 31.5% – over three times the channel’s 2015 average share of 9.2%. Elsewhere in Europe, impressive audience shares were also recorded in Norway, where 74.3% of TV viewers were watching women’s handball on TV2; in the Netherlands, where 64.8% of TV viewers tuned in to NPO1 to watch women’s hockey; and in Finland, where 66.6% of viewers watched coverage of the athletics events on 13 August.BROADCASTING035