Murray's Wimbledon fightback pulls in 10.5m on BBC

by Nikki Sandison, Brand Republic 01-Jul-08, 11:55

LONDON - Andy Murray's hard-won victory over Frenchman Richard Gasquet to win a place in the quarter finals at Wimbledon pulled in a peak audience of 10.5m viewers on BBC One yesterday, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The British number one managed to fight back from two sets down to win the match 5-7 3-6 7-6 6-2 6-4, securing him a place in the quarter final against hotly tipped Spaniard Rafael Nadal, who recently won the Stella Artois tournament.

The marathon four-hour match started wirth 4m viewers on BBC One. It switched to BBC Two at 6pm and by 8pm it had pulled in 5.5m, peaking at 10.5m from 8.30pm-9.30pm when it had switched back to BBC One.

'EastEnders' attracted 7.4m viewers for BBC One between 8pm and 8.30pm, winning the slot with a 34.3% share of the audience.

Channel 4's documentary 'Dispatches: The truth about Street Weapons', part of its 'Disarming Britain' season focusing on gun and knife crime, only managed to attract 0.1m viewers and a 3.4% share of the audience between 8pm and 9pm. Including Channel 4+1 it reached 0.8m and a 3.7% share.

Its documentary 'Kids, Knives and Broken Lives' fared better, netting 1m viewers in the 9pm-10pm slot and a 4.3% share of the audience. Including Channel 4+1, it managed 1.1m and a 4.6% share.

'Big Brother' drew 2.9m viewers for Channel 4 and a 15.4% share of the audience between 10pm-11pm. Including Channel 4+1, it managed 3m and a 16.1% share.

This was higher than the previous night, when the show only attracted 2.5m viewers and a 9.5% share of the 9pm-10pm audience.

Comments

David Gibson - 01/07/2008

The BBC site says that the Murray match had over 10m viewers.Can we have a recount?

Jeremy Lee - 01/07/2008

Am I the only person sick of seeing the lazy, and entirely inapproriate, epithet 'brave' applied to Murray (or indeed any other Scottish sporting endeavour)?