Nine’s Australian Open TV audience numbers down for a second day

Nine Network’s coverage of the Australian Open is struggling to attract big TV audience numbers.

Australian Open tennis. 09/02/2021. Day 2.. Ash Barty vs Danka Kovinic on Rod Laver Arena. Pic: Michael Klein

It’s gone from bad to worse for television broadcaster Nine Network as the public snubs its coverage of the delayed Australian Open.

The national average audience for the second night session, featuring women’s world number one Ash Barty, dropped more than 30 per cent to 625,000 from 919,000 last year.

Across the key five metropolitan cities, its audience was down nearly 31 per cent to 464,000 from 672,000.

Barty’s thrashing of Danka Kovinic in 44 minutes boasted a national and metro audience of 889,000 and 646,000, respectively.

However, audiences dropped off as Stefanos Tsitsipas took and Gilles Simon took the court. Nationally, 635,000 viewers watched Greece‘s Tsitsipas beat the Frenchmen comfortably in straight sets. The game was watched by 432,000 across the five major cities.

Last year’s Australian Open second night session kicked-off with Nick Kyrgios taking on Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego, which attracted a big national and metro audience of more than 1m and 736,00, respectively.

Nine said at the time that its audience was up 31.9 per cent on Kyrgios first round match of 2019, which was also the 7pm match on its main channel.

Nine‘s TV audience for the first night of the Australian Open, which was delayed by three weeks because of the coronavirus crisis, was down by nearly a quarter from last year.

The first night session was kicked off with tennis bad boy Kyrgios with a national audience of 653,000, down 24 per cent from 864,000 last year.

The poor start will be a worry for Nine executives after the tournament‘s delay hit its first-quarter TV program schedule, which is critical for free-to-air TV broadcasters as they compete against streaming players, including Netflix, Binge and Stan.