A women’s final short on stars and a men’s final short on drama resulted in historically low French Open ratings.
French Open coverage featuring the Rafael Nadal–Stan Wawrinka men’s final earned a 1.1 final rating and 1.6 million viewers on NBC last Sunday morning, down 21% in ratings and viewership from Novak Djokovic–Andy Murray last year (1.4, 2.0M) and down 15% and 18% respectively from Wawrinka-Djokovic 2015 (1.3, 1.9M).
The 1.1 rating is the lowest for French Open coverage featuring the men’s final since at least 1996, falling below the previous mark of 1.3 in 2015 and 2002.
The previous day, coverage featuring the Jelena Ostapenko–Simona Halep women’s final had a 0.7 and 1.1 million — down 36% in ratings and 28% in viewership from Garbine Muguruza–Serena Williams last year (1.1, 1.5M) and down 50% and 46% respectively from Williams-Lucie Safarova in 2015 (1.4, 2.0M).
The 0.7 rating is easily the lowest for any French Open final since at least ’96, falling below the previous mark of 1.1.
NBC does not release figures for the individual matches, meaning the above ratings include post-match analysis, doubles matches, and other programming aired in NBC’s 4-5 hour telecast windows.
[Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 6.15]
