• Federer again works his magic for Seven with 1.14m watching Open night 11
• Final Australia v Pakistan ODI gives Nine 700,000+ on arvo and evening
• Studio 10 pulls second-best crowd, ABC share slumps to under 7%
The Australian Open tennis on Seven certainly had the edge over the one-day international cricket on Nine on Australia Day.
The cricket was the winner across the afternoon though, but the tennis pulled the biggest primetime audience.
Roger Federer made it into the final of the Australian Open with his five-set Thursday evening victory. It was the biggest day of tennis across the fortnight with three semifinals featuring six of the eight people fighting it out for a place in the men’s and women’s finals. The final place in the men’s final is to be decided tonight.
The Australian Open evening audience was 1.14m, the biggest yet of the tournament. Earlier in the day there were 330,000 watching, while the late night night audience pushed over 800,000 as Federer finally claimed victory in the long match.
Nine’s cricket coverage had 740,000 watching in the afternoon as the Australian team built a record one-day score with David Warner leading the way. The evening audience of 721,000 was strong considering the opposition and the chance Pakistan had of making a game of it. As it was, Pakistan did very well pushing its score over 300 too which would have kept the audience lingering.
Network Ten had the Australia Day concert from outside the Opera House at its main attraction with 317,000 watching. TEN News did over 400,000 and Family Feud was on 340,000 with The Project 7pm also over 300,000.
Network Ten’s special Australia Day edition of Studio 10 pulled its second-biggest audience ever with 140,000 metro viewers. Its best audience ever was also recorded this month – 150,000.
TEN’s big night will be Saturday with the men’s final of the Big Bash League which will be preceded in the afternoon by the women’s Big Bash League final.
ABC’s key Australia Day programming was a replay of the Crowded House show at the Sydney Opera House with just 124,000 watching, which helped record one of the channel’s lowest-ever shares – 6.6%.
Railways, food and Nordic drama were the SBS offerings with the biggest audience tuning in for Great British Railway Journeys – 205,000.