Murray serves up ratings ace

Andy Murray

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Andy Murray helped BBC2 serve up a ratings smash as his first round Wimbledon match peaked with a sizeable 3.8m viewers (19%) at 7.30pm.

The corporation's coverage of Murray's straight sets win against Fabrice Santoro initially kicked off on BBC1 at 5.30pm with a sizeable 3.1m (25%) and grew to 3.5m (25.7%) at 5.45pm.

BBC2 then picked up the coverage where the channel's audience grew steadily and hit its high at 7.30pm.

Entire coverage of the tennis tournament on the channel between 5.50pm and 8pm gained a hefty 2.9m (16.4%).

BBC2's coverage of the game was a big draw for upmarket viewers with 53.3% of the audience coming from the ABC1 demographic. Viewers aged between 16 and 34 made up 16%.

BBC1's extensive afternoon coverage between 1.45pm and 6pm drew 1.9m (23.6%).

In the later stages of Murray's match, BBC2 had more viewers than BBC1 between 7pm and 7.30pm. At the time, BBC2 averaged 3.4m (18.5%) compared to the 3.3m (18.3%) who were watching BBC1's The One Show.

ITV1's Emmerdale was, initially, top of the pile at 7pm with an average 5m (26.3%) over an hour. The soap though was overtaken by BBC1's EastEnders at 7.30pm on 6m (30.2%).

BBC2 had much more modest success at 9pm with the final instalment of The Supersizers Go… The hour long factual show picked up 1.8m (8.3%) giving the six-part run an average of 1.8m (7.9%). The show just managed to break the slot average for the year so far of 1.7m (7%).

The food programme though faced the might of Channel 4's own food programme in the shape of Gordon Ramsay's F Word which tantalised 3.3m (15.4%) in the same slot. An additional 229,000 watched on C4+1.

Five's repeat of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation at 9pm trailed the terrestrial pack with 1.3m (6%).

C4 kept up the pace at 10pm with the latest goings on in the Big Brother house with 3.3m (19.2%). The show attracted 233,000 an hour later on C4+1.

BBC1's Crimewatch was in pole position at 9pm with 4.4m (20.4%). ITV1 didn't put up too much of a fight though with the start of a re-run of the second series of Doc Martin which charmed 3.9m (18.1%).

BBC3's spoof documentary series Summer Heights High gained a surge of interest at 10.30pm. The previous two outings of the comedy in the same weekly slot both got just under 200,000 viewers. Last night's episode though gained a significant boost as 289,000 (2.06%) tuned in for half an hour.

All hours shares for Tuesday 24 June 2008: BBC1 – 22.9%, ITV1 – 17.1%, C4 – 9.9% (C4+1 – 0.6%), BBC2 – 8.4%, Five – 5.8%, multichannel – 35.2%.

Peaktime (6pm to 10.30pm) shares: BBC1 – 23.5%, ITV1 – 18.6 %, BBC2 – 11.3%, C4 – 11.1% (C4+1 – 0.5%), Five – 5.5%, multichannel – 29.4%.