A peak television audience of more than 20 million viewers watched Germany’s thrilling extra time win over Argentina in the World Cup final - the vast majority of them on BBC1.

Germany’s 1-0 win, sealed by Mario Götze’s stunning strike with just minutes of the game to go, was seen by a peak of 16.7 million viewers on BBC1 at 10.30pm on Sunday. Another 3.8 million viewers were watching at the same time on ITV, a peak audience across both channels of 20.5 million.

ITV’s five-minute peak, across the entire game, came towards the end of normal time with 4 million viewers at 9.45pm.

The BBC traditionally beats ITV in the World Cup ratings and this year was no different, with an average of 12.1 million (50.3%) against ITV’s 2.9 million (12%).

BBC1’s audience was down on the 2010 final, Spain’s 1-0 win over Holland, again in extra time, which averaged 12.7 million viewers across the entirety of the BBC’s coverage. ITV was up, albeit marginally, from 2.8 million.

BBC1’s peak audience was also down on four years ago, from 17.9 million in 2010. ITV had a peak audience of 3.8 million in 2010.

The match itself, which kicked off at 8pm, averaged 14.9 million viewers on BBC1, and 3.6 million viewers on ITV, a ratio of around four to one in favour of advertising-free BBC1, according to unofficial figures.

Although still a crushing win for BBC1, the ratio was slightly better for ITV than 2010, when BBC1 had a match average of 15.1 million and ITV 3.3 million.

BBC1 had a 32.4% share of the TV audience across the day on Sunday, more than three times ITV’s 10.1%.

ITV’s all-day share of the audience did not suffer quite as much as 2010, when BBC1 also had the British Grand Prix, ITV sinking to just 8.6% of the audience.

All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live, +1 (except for BBC channels) and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, or other – unless otherwise stated. Figures for BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 generally include ratings for their HD simulcast services, unless otherwise stated

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