The news is making the rounds about how early round womens’ matches at Wimbledon are being assigned the Centre Court spotlight in prime time based on looks rather than talent.
“It’s the Wimbledon play committee, not us who decides on the order of play,” a source at the BBC told the Daily Mail. “But obviously it’s advantageous to us if there are good-looking women players on Centre Court…Our preference would be a Brit or a babe as this always delivers high viewing ratings.” (via New York Daily News)
I have difficulty buying that though. If the World Tennis Association was determining order of play, perhaps, but I’m not really sure what the Chinese wall between the “Wimbledon play committee” and the BBC looks like. It seems Wimbledon would be as concerned with ratings as the BBC.
So despite a much higher seeding, you don’t get Serena Williams on Centre Court in prime time during the early rounds, you get the likes of Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki. Hopefully we’ll find out some of the BBC ratings for these matches.
Babes rule !!
Good to know for the U.S. Open?
Superiorpics, the celebrity pic site, has a sub-board for “models and sports” and there’s always a ton of tennis babe pics there. I can’t get into it for some reason. Show me Anna Kournikova at some event in a dress – or better yet a bikini – and I’m good; in her tennis shorts, bun hairdo, and sweating on the court I don’t care.
Partly it’s because I can’t stand pretty much any sport except martial arts.
What are you talking about? Placing looks over talent? Just so happens one of Caroline Wozniacki’s talents is looking good!
~Lanie~
What a load of crap – first of all Wozniacki is currently ranked 9 on WTA’s seeding, so let’s not be to quick to dismiss (or insult) her, in fact as she got where she is with far less resources at her disposal than most her competitors I would suggest a far more respectful tone than “the likes of Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki”. Second I very much doubt that the traditional and very stuffy “Wimbledon play committee” would agree to something like that – in fact according to their official site the orde of play is determined as follows:
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Order of Play
The matches for each day are prepared in draft the previous evening by the Referee and submitted by him to the Order of Play committee for approval or amendment.
Every effort is made to have the potentially most attractive matches played on the courts with the most spectator accommodation, but care is also taken to give any player likely to go far in the tournament his or her fair share of the Show Courts.
———————————————————————————
So basically they will try to showcase as many top seeds as possible on the “show courts” – which would include both Wozniacki and S. Williams.
PTI cannot be wrong!
Clearly Wozniacki is cuter than Williams, even if she is harder to spell.
this is practice is nothing new…wake up people
What the…??? No one wants to see Serena Williams and her 225 pound frame on center court? She could step in and play LB for most college football teams.
The only person who’s played in prime time on BBC1 so far this year is Andy Murray (I don’t expect that to change) and the numbers for those matches have been fantastic, his fourth round match was particularly huge. The BBC coverage of Wimbledon is however sprawled out across both BBC1 and BBC2 throughout the day plus online and interactive viewing is also taking place, which is awkward to measure and the bulk of coverage takes place during daytime viewing rather than prime time.
As it stands though I can tell you that the only thing the BBC wants out of Wimbledon is for Murray to be the last match on Centre Court when he plays so they can move that into prime time and the folks at Wimbledon have been very good at making sure that happens. For those that are interested though I’ll pass on the Wimbledon numbers I’ve been able to get my hands on.
Monday 22 June (first day)
Coverage started on BBC2 at 10:30AM with a review of last years Wimbledon and preview of this years tournament, which ran until 11:25AM and averaged 100,000 viewers and a 2% share. Live coverage of this years tournament proper began on BBC2 at midday and ran through to 3:25PM with an average of 900,000 viewers and a 19% share. BBC1 coverage of the tournament started at 1:45PM and ran through to 6PM averaging 1.5 million viewers and peaking with 2.7 million during the final 15 minutes. Primetime coverage for the first day was on BBC2 starting at 6PM and running through to 8PM where it pulled in 1.5 million viewers and an 8% share.
Tuesday 23 June
British hope Andy Murray played his first game of the tournament, coverage switched between BBC1 and BBC2 from 5PM to 7:45PM and averaged 3.8 million viewers and a 25% share. Viewing peaked in the final 15 minutes with 4.5 million viewers, which translates to a quarter hour share of 23% for BBC2. That number is well up from Murray’s first round match last year.
The full BBC1 coverage for the day which again began at 1:45PM and ran through to 6PM averaged 2.1 million viewers and a 26% share. The full BBC2 primetime coverage from 6PM – 8PM averaged 3.6 million viewers for a 23% share.
Wednesday 24 June
I only have numbers for BBC2’s ‘Today At Wimbledon’ recap show, which ran from 8PM – 9PM and averaged 1.5 million viewers for an 8% share. For the record that’s roughly the kind of numbers Today At Wimbledon has done throughout the first week.
Thursday 25 June
Andy Murray’s second round match was seen by a peak of 4.6 million viewers in the final 15 minutes and averaged 3.9 million for a 29% share across both BBC1 and BBC2 (it switch between the two again) between 5:30PM and 7PM.
Saturday 26 June
Again I have Andy Murray numbers, from 6:15PM through to 7:45PM on BBC1 had an average of audience of 6.8 million viewers for an audience share of 32%
Monday 28 June
Andy Murray’s fourth round match picked up huge numbers running from 6:40PM to 10:45PM, it averaged 7.7 million. The first twenty minutes, which were shown on BBC2 pulled 4 million (slightly more than the 6PM – 7PM BBC2 coverage for the night averaged out at) and peaked with 11.8 million viewers for the final 15 minutes giving BBC1 a 54% from 10:30 – 10:45. Looking at just the BBC1 coverage from 7PM onwards the match averaged 8.6 million viewers and a 39% share. Audiences grew to about 10 million for the 9PM hour.
Caroline Wozniacki was a winner of junior Wimbledon and won this year’s Eastbourne. Many so-called tennis experts/ media pundits expected her to do a lot better than the fourth round.
I don’t think the Wimbledon committee is overly influenced by the players looks when deciding who to put on show courts, they only got rid of putting Mrs. or Miss and using first names on the scoreboards this year.
Also, we’ll be more than likely seeing an All Williams final again this year. As lovely as they are in their post-match interviews, seeing them batter every opponent isn’t much fun for the crowds. I mean, I doubt they’ve lost more than twenty games in all the rounds so far! I can’t see them losing their semis either, Safina had like 15 double faults today and Dementieva is known to serve a few.
And then there’s the grunting, I switched off the Williams/Azarenka match because it was annoying. I’d rather the interactive feed of other matches.
The organisers also have the issue of trying to avoid what happened to Nalbandian a few years back where he hadn’t played a match on centre court before the final due to rain and no one expecting him to reach that stage.
If Centre Court matches for men were based on looks instead of talent… Roger Federer (who looks like a troll on a good day) would never get to play there unless he made it to the final.