Wimbledon final draws 17 million viewers

The men’s Wimbledon tennis final on Sunday drew the highest UK TV ratings of the year, with BBC One hitting a peak audience of 17.3 million viewers, a 79.6% share, as the match drew to a close. 

The BBC said that the viewing figures were the highest for a Wimbledon final since “at least” 1990, with an average 12.1 million UK viewers watching the BBC’s entire coverage of the final between 13:45 and 18:00, a 73% share.

The corporation also notched up strong digital ratings during the tournament, logging 12.7 million video requests on its online platforms throughout the championships – Óthe BBC’s highest audience for online viewing since the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Some 10.59 million people accessed the BBC’s red button service to watch Wimbledon, up from 7.17 million last year, the BBC added

“The London 2012 Olympic Games set the new bar for digital coverage from the BBC. In the past two weeks, we have seen again the huge audience interest in and appetite for consuming live events digitally – not just for Wimbledon, but for Formula 1 and Glastonbury,” said Chris Condron, head of sport product, BBC Future Media.

Over the past two weeks a total of 27.08 million UK browsers accessed the BBC Sport site – peaking at 6.47m UK browsers on Friday 5 July when Murray beat Janowicz in the Wimbledon semi-final.