Copyright © 2016. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

There was a lot of international variation in broadcast ratings for the Australian Open finals, with the climax of the tournament doing well in Australia and Europe but staying level in the United States.

The men’s final received the highest TV ratings of any program aired in Australian on Sunday, drawing 33.7 percent of spectators. The Channel Seven broadcast beat T20 cricket on Nine as well as the reality show I’m a Celebrity on Ten. However, the 1.619 million watching was not as high as the 1.88 million the previous year. It is the second straight year Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray played for the men’s title.

The women’s final was watched by 1.53 million, the highest in Australia since 2011.

The figures themselves will be carefully watched by tournament officials — broadcast rights now represent almost a third of Tennis Australia’s annual gross income, with the Channel Seven deal about AU $35 million a year. In addition, the profitability of TV rights has increased because the organization now produces the host broadcast and sells it to other broadcasters.

In Europe, Angelique Kerber’s victory drew high figures, spurred by German interest in the final. The three-set encounter was watched by an average of 1.5 million, peaking at 2.5 million as Kerber secured victory.

In the United States, the women’s final drew 679,000 viewers, a good figure but less than the 850,000 who watched Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova the previous year. The men’s final got a 0.5 rating, compared to 0.6 for the women and the same as the previous year. Each rating point is approximately 1 million homes.

In Canada, the men’s semifinal between Canadian Milos Raonic and Murray was the big draw, getting 259,000 viewers on TSN and its stations.

In Britain, however, the picture was mixed. With national broadcaster BBC no longer showing the Australian Open as part of a reduced budget, ratings fell sharply from the four million that watched the men’s final the previous year and the five million that watched the first Djokovic and Murray final three years ago. But the 1.1 million tuning in was British Eurosport’s highest rated sports program in the country for 20 years.

Copyright © 2016. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.