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Epic Australian Open battle smashes them

UPDATE: The Djokovic / Rafael Nadal kept the nation rivetted, with an adjusted average of 1.8m viewers with 1.67m still watching until 1:40am AEDT.

Sunday night’s Australian Open Men’s Singles Final broke the record books.

The epic match stretched for 5 hours 53 minutes -the longest grand slam in the history of the Australian Open.

UPDATED: Across the marathon broadcast, which ended at 1:37am AEDT it pulled an average of 1.86 viewers, up 34.7% on 2011’s Final.

The game peaked at 2.8m viewers.

A staggering 1.67m viewers were still glued to Seven for the Men’s Final Presentation at 1.45am this morning.

For Seven the match was ideal, stretching from 7:30pm until just before 2am -the cut off point for daily ratings. Seven landed an enormous 45.4% share (from 6pm – midnight), more than double its nearest competitor, Network TEN on 21.5%. Nine had to settle for third place on 18.3%.

The game trounced the competition, but TEN’s Sunday line-up held strong in its second outing. Both New Girl (1.28m) and Young Talent Time (1.08m) actually increased on their previous weeks. Homeland (1.17m) and Modern Family (1.16m) were also strong. The Project was 412,000.

Nine News was best for Nine on 1.23m viewers, followed by The Big Bang Theory repeats (884,000 / 876,000), 60 Minutes (716,000) and The Mentalist repeats (494,000 / 408,000).

Grand Designs (801,000) topped ABC1 improving from last week, then ABC News (787,000). Zen was 414,000.

A History of Ancient Britain pulled 263,000 for SBS ONE.

The best-ever numbers for the Australian Open remain Lleyton Hewitt’s 2005 match on 4.04 million.

Sunday 29 January 2012

39 Responses

  1. Seven’s coverage has been awesome. Loved watching it, except for the ads for shows like Marry My Boy and My Resturaunt Rules that I Will not be watching…

    I watched the entire match Sunday, and while it was incredible, I thought it was pretty one-sided until Rafa staged a comeback at the end of the fourth set. It was usual high calibre tennis as you’d expect from number one and two players in the world, but not the greatest game I have ever seen. Still excellent match… epic length made it all the more better.

  2. It was the greatest tennis match i’ve ever seen. As for 7’s coverage it was excellent. Hewitts commentary great. And I loved how Bruce would come in with those stats. his And great use of the 7 two channel for the fortnight. I believe this is how they will be doing it for the AFL coverage as well.

  3. @ JC and Dave WA

    Thanks for clearing that up. It sure is late for a local news bulletin but wise of Seven to stick with the tennis. WA viewers sure got the best out of the live broadcast getting to see it finish while it was still Sunday. I hope to see more live sport into WA. Nine Perth should make the most of it when 7 News airs at another time so that it would encourage viewers to stick with them.

  4. Thanks to channel seven for showing every minute live in Perth! As others have said…this is the way it should be! In the end we were the lucky ones..being able to see the whole final live from 4.30-11pm…fantastic stuff! Channel 7…never change it back!!

  5. @Cameron SA, due to the tennis, Seven’s news was telecast at 11pm our time. Nine’s news was the only one at 6pm, which prob explains higher ratings for them.

  6. I like tennis, but had a feeling this was gonna be a marathon, so fell asleep watching, woke up around midnight and just thought…stuff this it will be on 4 eva…..work early on Mon….and went to bed. Still well done to all involved and finally a network (in this country) has realised how to use digi channels effectively. I would say they have been influenced, by how well the BBC cover Wimbledon….

  7. @The Secret Squirrel

    I am the Cameron that said I did not watch Seven. I am not a fan of watching sport even though there are some occasions where I have, AFL & NRL grand finals. I am more for entertainment when it comes to TV. I do like tennis but not watching it on tv. I have enjoyed playing it on Wii Sports and also the Mario Tennis games.

    I am impressed by the ratings for Ten last night. All of the Super Sunday shows had similar figures to last week with some up and some down. The Project over 400k is good but not great. YTT was much better and I hope it grows. YTT, MF, NG and Homeland all have more viewers in Sydney than other cities plus in that city they bet 7 News and 9 News. Perth was down as it clashed with the tennis however Homeland still did well. Wonder why 9 news was so high in Perth? 7 News must have aired at a different time in Perth and did poorly on Saturday. Speaking of Nine News it was the only show on ch 9 worth watching and the only one with decent ratings.

    The better coverage including being live in WA (any everywhere else) and the great use of 7two did help but I am sure 7 would have hit 50-60% if an Aussie was playing and higher if there was two. Tomic vs Hewitt would have pulled 3.5+ million but maybe another year. Do not expect shares for Seven to be as high as 40% for the rest of the week as the cricket is set to dominate 2 days a week until March. I am glad people did enjoy the tennis and hope cricket fans will enjoy spending the next few weeks watching it.

  8. Thank you Channel 7 Perth for your live coverage of the Australian Open over the last two weeks. It has made a huge difference and I think you will find that more and more viewers will be watching in years to come as people get used to the change in timeslot to watch live matches.

    Thank you, again.

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