Double Olympic champion James Cracknell can't stop drop in TV audience for the Boat Race The Boat Race attracted the lowest television audience in a decade The BBC One coverage drew in 800,000 fewer people than last year The peak audience of 4.8m coincided with the climax of the men's race By Laura Lambert For The Daily Mail Published: 21:27 BST, 8 April 2019 | Updated: 21:33 BST, 8 April 2019 Viewcomments The Boat Race attracted the lowest television audience in a decade, with the average audience dipping below 3million for the first time. Despite the added appeal of double Olympic champion James Cracknell's participation at the age of 46, the BBC One coverage drew in 800,000 fewer people than last year, with an average of 2.9m people. Similarly, the peak audience of 4.8m, which coincided with the climax of the men's race between Oxford and Cambridge, dropped by 600,000. The average TV audience for Sunday's Boat Race dipped below 3million for the first time The decline comes as ITV celebrated strong figures for their Grand National coverage on Saturday, when a peak audience of 9.6m tuned in to watch Tiger Roll triumph for the second year running. Factors to explain the drop in Boat Race viewers could be that the action was much earlier this year than in 2018, with the women's race starting at 2.13pm and the men's race just under an hour later. The BBC are said to be happy with the TV figures, which also showed a highest viewership share for the race, 29.67 per cent, since 2013. The programme, which was fronted by Clare Balding, was stretched over two hours and 40 minutes and featured interviews with Cracknell, Ben Fogle and Matthew Pinsent as well as live coverage of both races. Share or comment on this article: All rights reserved for this news site dailymail and under his responsibility