TV and Internet Audiences Put Wimbledon Top

British TV viewers again voted Wimbledon the nation’s top sports event at the weekend as the Men’s Singles Final easily saw off competition from the British Grand Prix, according to BBC figures.

Roger Federer’s fifth consecutive title in the epic 5-set victory over Rafael Nadal on Sunday attracted a peak BBC audience of 7.3m compared to a peak of 5.1m for ITV’s coverage of the F1 British Grand Prix.

Jamie Murray and Jelena Jankovic’s win in the Mixed Doubles also proved a hit, with a peak BBC audience of 4.9m celebrating their victory.

Higher ratings were not confined to the UK, as in the US, NBC’s ratings for both finals were also up. During The Championships, the All England Club and NBC renewed their agreement for at least another four years.

On the Web, over eight million unique users had logged onto www.wimbledon.org by the end of The Championships, an all-time Grand Slam record and the equivalent of the population of London logging on at least once during the fortnight.

The site was visited more than 40 million times, nearly twice as many as last year, and at 266m page views, an increase of over 80m on last year.