The first weekend of the French Open put up mixed numbers on NBC.
Coverage of the season’s second Grand Slam earned a 0.8 U.S. rating and 1.098 million viewers last Saturday, down 11% in ratings and 15% in viewership from last year (0.9, 1.291M).
Meanwhile, Sunday’s coverage drew a 1.0 and 1.390 million, up 11% and 9%, respectively, from last year (0.9, 1.275M).
The French Open trailed just about every other sporting event on broadcast last weekend. The only events to draw lower numbers were the Senior PGA Tour and a CBS special on the Ultimate Barbecue Showdown.
Though low for broadcast, the NBC telecasts were unsurprisingly the most-viewed French Open windows of the first week. ESPN2’s top telecast of the first week drew a 0.5 U.S. rating and 737,000 viewers, and most of the network’s telecasts drew fewer than 500,000 viewers.
Numbers for The Tennis Channel were not available.
(This year’s NBC numbers courtesy Robert Seidman, TV By the Numbers; ESPN2 numbers from Son of the Bronx)
