Digital Focus: Tennis, science and celebair
- Published: 11 September 2008 09:38
- Author: Philip Reevell
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- Last Updated: 11 September 2008 09:38
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Andy Murray seems to enjoy playing in America more than at Wimbledon.
His achievement in beating Nadal in the US Open semi-final was spread Wimbledon-style across two weather-interrupted days. This worked very well for Sky Sports 1 which on Saturday afternoon broadcast coverage of the Scot taking a two set lead, followed on Sunday night by his triumphant win.
The figures for Sunday night were best, delivering 650,000/5% share, with a peak of 1.2 million/8% share. This amounted to a 15% share in Sky Digital homes and was good enough to make 13th place in the top 15. Of course, if it had been Wimbledon the match would have gone out live on BBC1. The Wimbledon men's finals in July were watched by 6.8 million/40% so a Murray win in the semi-finals next year would send the ratings off the scale. However, I'm not sure Murray would be that bothered - he seems to like New York. Monday's Men's Open final when Murray was defeated by Federer peaked at 1.3 million/14% share on Sky Sports 1 at 11pm.
From grand slam to big bang - BBC4's Big Bang Night had 540,000/3% share for Big Bang Machine on Thursday at 9pm, when a physicist, Brian Cox, visited the machine in Switzerland which recreates the conditions of the Big Bang. By the time you have read this they'll have switched it on and we'll know whether the prediction that it's all quite safe is true or not.
Since the new controller of BBC2 will be expected to work closely with BBC4, it's worth noting that the Big Bang Machine was the only original factual show on digital TV last week which rated over 500,000. Over in entertainment, Saturday's Xtra Factor on ITV2 eclipsed Fridays post-finale Big Mouth. The Xtra Factor had 1.2 million/6% on Saturday at 7.50pm against Big Mouth which had 1 million/9% share at 11 pm on Friday.
On Tuesday at 9pm, ITV2's Celebair - yes, it's celebrities on an airline - opened with 550,000/2.8% which is encouraging. Meanwhile, on the same night at the same time Discovery had a new series of Deadliest Catch, with 223,000/1% share. Channel 4 is showing the previous series on Sunday at 5.30pm.
