The EBU and its members offered audiences sporting action across television, radio and digital platforms for around 10 hours a day.

In total, 44 free-to-air broadcasters and partners across Europe and worldwide covered the event in Glasgow and Berlin.

The event grouped together existing continental championships and held them at the same time under the same banner.

Aquatics, cycling, rowing, golf, triathlon and gymnastics were held in the Scottish city with athletics in the German capital.

The Championships ran between August 2 and 12.

"Audiences rocketed across the ten days of televised competition with the top average audience across the ten countries totalling 20 million viewers on the closing Sunday," an EBU release said.

"In Norway, for example, NRK achieved an 80 per cent market share for the conclusion of the 1,500 metres and 400m hurdles while the event as a whole reached 68 per cent of Norwegians.

"The broadcasters for the host countries have reported impressive results with audiences really engaged by the multi-sport concept.

"In Germany, ARD/ZDF reported over 43 million viewers watched at least one broadcast from the Championships.

"The athletics, broadcast live from Berlin, proved particularly popular with over five million tuning in to ARD for the finals on the Sunday, while the women's 4x100m relay reached a five-minute peak of over six million on ZDF.

"In Britain, the BBC reported a peak audience of 6.4 million with an overall reach of 20 million."

In comparison to previous individual European Championships, some of the "smaller" sports have seen their viewing figures rise dramatically.

In Germany, according to the EBU, sports like triathlon, rowing and golf saw large audiences across the event while Poland tripled the audience for rowing compared to the 2017 Championships.

ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky said: "We have reached more viewers than we thought possible.

"The market share of the individual sports have almost doubled compared to single transmissions."

Ron Chakraborty, BBC lead executive, added: "The European Championships created a lot of buzz.

"You couldn't really miss it across the BBC.

"As a result, it has created far more press and publicity and put a much bigger spotlight on the events than had we just been sharing individual sports."

Stefan Kürten, director of EBU Sport, said: "The EBU and its members are the leading broadcast partners for the success of multi-sports events in Europe.

"Together with our members and other stakeholders - including the participating sports federations, host cities and European Championships Management - we have been fully committed to the concept of the European Championships from the outset as we were convinced that a further loss of relevance for European Olympic sports had to be avoided."

The success of the first multi-sport European Championships has prompted interest from numerous potential hosts for the next version in 2022, including Berlin, Hamburg and the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Stuttgart, hosts of the 1986 European Athletics Championships and the 1993 International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships, have also thrown their hat into the ring for 2022 although only as a co-host, given that their main stadium, now known as the Mercedes-Benz Arena, was re-developed solely for football in 2009.

A spokesman for the city told the DPA agency: "It would be tempting for us to also host events of the European Championships - if only in conjunction with other cities.

"Therefore one would have to clarify with other interested cities, which part can be taken over from Stuttgart."