TV Ratings January 23: Tennis delivers 850,000 and 28% share

Big stars delivered big audiences for Nine on day four of the Australian Open. Nine recorded its biggest share of the week and the biggest share of the year for any channel.

Kyrgios was the main attraction early in the evening and the good news for Nine was he took four sets to do the job against Simon. Nadal then followed as he progressed to the third round, defeating Delbonis in three sets. Nine’s tennis audience was 843,000, the biggest of the tournament so far. Later in the night there was still 345,000 watching.

Seven and 10 fought it out well behind in second and third place. Seven had the first Big Bash League match featuring returning Australian team members Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne. Despite the heavyweights, Brisbane Heat could only manage 126 runs with Labuschagne contributing 3 while AB de Villiers improved on a previous performance with 25. Sydney Sixers made the total easily and only lost two wickets – one of them was Steve Smith who made 9.

The tennis hurt the cricket numbers with less than 350,000 watching each innings.

10’s I’m A Celebrity did 609,000 for the main episode before the numbers lifted to 697,000 for the elimination. A week ago the episode did 733,000.

Elsewhere last night a repeat episode of Stop Laughing…This Is Serious on ABC did 238,000.

SBS had a timely Monty Python special programmed – Monty Python Live: One Down, Five to Go – which did 139,000.