Nine’s Australian Open tennis TV audience drops 30 per cent

The trouble-plagued Australian Open has been a ratings miss for Nine, with its audience down by nearly a third from last year.

Novak Djokovic in action against Daniil Medvedev in the Australian Open men’s singles final. Picture: AFP

The trouble-plagued Australian Open has been a big ratings miss for Nine, with its audience down by nearly a third from last year.

Across the five biggest capital city markets for the 13 days to Saturday (including the women’s final won by Japan’s Naomi Osaka), Nine drew an average daily audience of 366,000.

By comparison, the 2020 Australian Open, which was held in the tournament’s traditional January timeslot, attracted an average daily viewership of 522,000, resulting in a 30 per cent year-on-year drop for the host free-to-air broadcaster, according to OzTAM.

This year’s Open was beset by problems, not least the three-week delay, which pushed the tournament beyond January and out of the holiday season, which in previous years has allowed the sporting showpiece to act as a strong promotional platform for the network’s slate of popular programs.

The TV audience was also badly weakened by the absence of fan favourite Roger Federer, and the modest performances of Australian players such as Nick Kyrgios and Alex de Minaur.

The interruption of a snap five-day COVID-19 lockdown in the middle of the tournament didn’t help either.

Crowds were not allowed for those five days, which left thousands of stadium seats empty. In a bid to bolster the atmosphere at Melbourne Park, Nine used fake crowd noise during matches.

The free-to-air TV audience was down from the get-go, with a 17 per cent year-on-year ratings dip on day one of the tournament.

However, the biggest carnage was on the eighth day (the second Monday) of the tournament, with Nine’s ratings slumping more than 65 per cent year-on-year, from 840,000 on the corresponding day in 2021 to just 290,000.

The women’s final on Saturday attracted 851,000 metro viewers, down 4.5 per cent from last year, according to Nine.

Naomi Osaka on her way to victory over Jennifer Brady in the women’s singles final. Picture: Getty Images

The audience numbers for Sunday nights men’s final between Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev will be released on Monday morning, but are unlikely to make a dent in the tournament’s overall poor TV ratings.

The tournament’s overall numbers are a disaster for Nine, when compared to bumper ratings for other sports over the summer. Pay-TV and streaming group Foxtel scored big with its coverage of the cliffhanger Australia-India Test series and Big Bash League. The Test series was the most-watched ever on Australian subscription TV, while its BBL audience numbers spiked 28 per cent from last year.

Joanna Barnes, national head of trading at media agency PHD Media, said live sport was unpredictable but there had also been “a lot of uncertainty and change to the scheduling of the pre-tournament games”.

“A lack of crowds also impacts viewer experience too, and an injured Federer who we generally love to watch and guarantees thrilling matches has been a huge loss to this tournament,” Ms Barnes told The Australian.

 

A Nine spokesman said the lower ratings on free-to-air were largely offset by record viewing on digital as people streamed matches on desktop and mobile.

“Once again, the Australian Open has captured the attention of millions of Australians and achieved what we needed it to, providing a major launch pad for our Q1 programming,” Nine program director Hamish Turner said. “The AO has a unique place in Australian TV.

“Brands turn to the Australian Open to launch their year and it is an amazing platform for us, in that it captures audiences in the key demographics – where it has dominated for two weeks – and then helps launch our television schedule for 2021.”

The poor Australian Open audience numbers could hurt the network’s most popular reality show Married At First Sight, which premieres on Monday night. Nine’s recent MAFS two-part special reunion struggled to attract the stellar audience numbers of the past.

MAFS will go head-to-head with Seven’s minigolf show Holey Moley, which attracted 983,000 viewers across the five major cities on its debut on February 1 but has had its audience drop sharply.