Epic tennis and cricket finals lure TV viewers

Late night? No problem. Thrilling tennis and cricket finals landed broadcasters a win of their own.

The moment of victory, as England seals its super over win against New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup final at Lord’s. Picture: Getty Images

Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer’s epic five-hour Wimbledon clash and the tie-breaker World Cup Cricket final between New Zealand and England landed Australia’s broadcasters a late-night win of their own.

Preliminary data from OzTAM shows more than 400,000 metropolitan viewers watched the first half of the Wimbledon final - the longest in history - according to OzTAM data, while an average of 361,000 viewers watched the first session of the World Cup Cricket.

The second half of the Wimbledon final audience has not been recorded, as it ran beyond 2am (AEST), but the second session of the cricket attracted 110,000 metropolitan viewers, and gave multichannel 9GEM a 9.4 per cent share of audience for the night.

However the two finals were not up against one another. Nine ran the cricket from 7.30pm on 9GEM, while the Wimbledon match ran on Seven’s main channel from 11pm.

On Foxtel, the World Cup final had 225,000 national subscription viewers for session one, and 73,000 for session two.

Novak Djokovic, right, holds the winner's trophy as he passes vanquished foe Roger Federer during the trophy (L) during the Wimbledon presentation. Picture: AFP

Up against the two finals from 9.30pm was the 9th stage of the Tour de France, which averaged 105,000 metro viewers for SBS.

The international tournaments didn’t attract audiences as large as the AFL and NRL, which ran earlier in the day.

Seven’s coverage of the AFL match between Richmond and GWS had 434,000 viewers, and an additional 141,000 viewers through Foxtel. Nine’s afternoon NRL match between the Paramatta Eels and the Wests Tigers had 294,000 viewers across Sydney and Brisbane, and 276,000 on Fox League.

On Sunday night, the most watched programs were the 6pm bulletins on Seven and Nine respectively. They were the only two programs to attract more than one million viewers.

Nine’s Ninja Warrior was the most watched entertainment show, with 899,000 metro viewers. Seven’s House Rules drew an audience of 732,000, and Ten’s MasterChef Australia averaged 605,000 viewers.

The biggest share of audience for the night came from Seven, boosted by the tight tennis match. But when taking into account multichannels, the Cricket World Cup audience helped Nine lead Sunday from a network perspective.