Ash Barty tennis Wimbledon
Ash Barty (Image: AAP/Julian Smith)

An average of 1.64 million people watched Ash Barty’s historic win in the Wimbledon women’s singles final on Nine late Saturday night. The first part of coverage had 1.85 million watching, which was most of the match, and 1.42 million watched the extended broadcast.

The 1.85 million was the biggest TV audience of the week. 1.39 million watched in the metros, 461,000 in the regions — 508,000 in Sydney and “only” 429,000 in Melbourne, which is odd because tennis always does better down south.

Sunday night and early Monday it was the turn of the men, with Novak Djokovic winning a curious match against Italy’s Matteo Berrettini. Curious in that the Italian bumbled his way to a win in the first set tie break before being flattened by the Joker. Just 434,000 people watched. Australians rightfully supported Barty.

Sunday morning saw Insiders‘ audience jump to 685,000 as viewers tuned in for the news update on Barty’s win and for more on COVID-19 in NSW. The audiences for Offsiders (358,000) and Sports Sunday on Nine added more than 60,000 to 70,000 each from the previous Sunday morning. The audience for Nine’s Weekend Today jumped 70,000 or so as well, while Weekend Sunrise on Seven saw a small fall.

Nine won the night on Sunday (and last week thanks to the big win on Saturday night). Last night saw the battle of the re-treads — Nine’s old fav Farmer Wants A Wife did OK for Seven with 1.08 million, and Nine brought back a not-so-golden oldie of Seven’s in the shape of Beauty And The Geek — 1 million. It was on Seven a decade or so ago, and last night showed its age.

The big lesson from this weekend was that Seven pulled the wrong rein when it dropped the tennis and went for cricket as a summer sport. COVID has confused a lot of things, but Barty’s win gives Nine the bragging rights.

Tonight it’s night one of the Masterchef final on Ten and it’s a rest day in the Tour de France.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (32.5%)
  2. Seven (24.2%)
  3. Ten (20.7%)
  4. ABC (14.5%)
  5. SBS (8.1%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (23.8%)
  2. Seven (17.5%)
  3. Ten (14.9%)
  4. ABC (10.3%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.7%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. GO (3.5%)
  2. 7mate (3.4%) 
  3. 10 Bold (3.2%)
  4. Gem (2.9%)
  5. 7TWO, 10 Peach (2.2%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.773 million
  2. Nine News — 1.629 million
  3. 7pm ABC News —1.146 million
  4. Farmer Wants A Wife (Seven) — 1.280 million
  5. Beauty And The Geek (Nine) — 1.001 million
  6. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 909,000
  7. Masterchef Final Masterclass (Ten) — 834,000
  8. Grand Designs (ABC) — 758,000
  9. Insiders (ABC, ABC News)   — 686,000
  10. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 685,000

Top metro programs: 

  1. Nine News — 1.233 million
  2. Seven News — 1.178 million

Losers: 60 Minutes — fading. 

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.233 million
  2. Nine News — 1.178 million
  3. 7pm ABC News — 776,000
  4. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 513,000
  5. Sunday Project 7pm (Ten) — 505,000
  6. Ten News First — 354,000
  7. Nine Late News — 335,000
  8. The Sunday Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 320,000
  9. SBS World News — 176,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Insiders (ABC, ABC News) — 686,000
  2. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) — 472,000
  3. Weekend Today (Nine) — 434,000
  4. Landline (ABC) — 425,000
  5. Weekend Today (Nine) — 352,000
  6. Offsiders (ABC) — 358,000
  7. Sports Sunday (Nine) — 343,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: Cronulla vs NZ Warriors (Fox League) — 151,000
  2. AFL: Richmond vs Collingwood (Fox Footy) — 139,000
  3. AFL: Footscray vs Sydney (Fox Footy) — 128,000
  4. Supercars – Townsville (Fox Sports 506) — 124,000
  5. AFL: Bounce (Fox Footy) — 99,000