Far be it from me to tell the people who run Wimbledon how they should run their tournament, but – don’t you think the later stages of the men's competition should be broadcast in primetime?
After all the hullabuloo about the Andy Murray and the New Roof classic on Monday – whereby the Roof facilitated the excitement of finishing a big match late in primetime, on Wednesday normal afternoon service resumed. Monday night’s first Wimbledon night match ended after the 10 O’Clock News should have finished – it peaked at 11.8 million, 54% share at 10.30pm. Great summer evening TV entertainment and a higher peak than was achieved for the semi-final on Friday afternoon and Final on Sunday afternoon.
Wednesday's quarter finals resumed with afternoon tennis-watching taking priority once again. BBC1 starting its Wimbledon coverage at 1.45 pm, running through the afternoon with Murray’s relatively easy three set win recording an average audience for the show of 3.6 million/38% share. The share figure peaked at 5.6m/47% for the early stages of the match, before tailing off slightly.
Would things have been different if the tennis had started at, say 8pm, instead of mid-afternoon? Instead of the highlight show, Today at Wimbledon on BBC2, with just 2.1 million/11% share it’s a fair guess to say that Murray would have done better for BBC1 than Celebrity Masterchef which had 3.9m/20% share.
Assuming Murray’s game filled the two hours between 8pm and 10pm, he would have outrated Waking the Dead with 2.6 million/13% share, and would most likely have seen off The Bill, on ITV1 at 8pm with 4.3m/22% share, and Cops with Cameras at 9pm with 3.1million/16% share.
Wimbledon runs on BBC1,a public service channel, rather than a commercial one, and organisers have not had schedule their best matches around the primetime availability of the TV audience. The order of play for Friday’s semi’s starts at 1pm – I can’t imagine that approach would appeal much to Uefa when it thinks about the Champions League – or Sky and the Premier Leagure for that matter. When’s the best time to play a big football match – about 7.30pm.
But if the weather no longer plays a part, then mid-afternoon is no time for a big tennis game. Does The final really need begin with BBC1 coverage starting on Sunday at 1.30pm?
One of the benefits of the Roof is that it prompts such thoughts. Of course it depends on having a domestic player capable of reaching the later rounds of the tournament, but with Murray into a semi and hoping for better, the prospects for future Wimbledons look rosier than in the past. I’d like to think that meetings are already taking place about how next year’s Wimbledon could be better scheduled to suit the primetime audience. After all, everyone pays for the licence fee, so the more people who can watch live tennis, the better.
Of course it might seem as if there's a something of a gamble involved here, since Murray's exit in the semi-finals resulted in a 'good for tennis fans' final without a domestic hero. The semi-final had an audience of 6.3million/48% share,peaking at 10 million/50% share at 6.30pm. However the Final on Sunday had an audience of 7.1million/49% share on Sunday afternoon, peaking at 11million/55% share at 6.15pm for the epic fifth set.
How much higher would that audience have been if Murray had been in the final? We'd be talking about Britain's Got Talent scale. And a Murray-less Final which finished at 10pm on Sunday would certainly exceed the audience for BBC1's 9pm programme Casualty 1909's 3.3 million/14% share.
So what's the case against running the semi's and Final in primetime? I can only think of one - that Wimbledon is an open air competition which traditionally takes place during daylight hours. So long as there was no way to run the show later in the day, that case was unbeatable. But those days have gone for good. How long before Wimbledon Sunday becomes Wimbledon Sunday night? If those who predict Murray will be back for next year's Final are right, maybe it will be sooner we think.
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