CBS’ First-Day Tournament Coverage Draws Even With ‘06

CBS averaged a 4.9/11 overnight Nielsen rating for its four broadcast windows during the first day of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament on Thursday, flat with a 4.9/10 last year. The chart below presents a window-by-window comparison for the tournament’s first day over the previous two years (THE DAILY).

CBS' NCAA TOURNAMENT OVERNIGHT RATINGS FOR FIRST-DAY COVERAGE
WINDOW	'07	'06	%+/-	'05	%+/-
12:15-2:45pm	3.3/11	3.2/10	3.1%	3.4/10	-2.9%
2:45-5:30pm	3.6/10	4.1/10	-12.2%	3.8/10	-5.3%
7:00-9:30pm	6.6/11	6.4/10	3.1%	5.9/10	11.9%
9:30pm-12:00am	6.2/11	6.4/12	-3.1%	6.5/11	-4.6%
ONE-DAY AVG.	4.9/11	4.9/10	0.0%	4.8/10	2.1%
Note: All times EST

Most U.S. Markets Able To Catch Part Of Penn-Texas A&M Game

FLIPPING THE SWITCH: In Philadelphia, Marc Narducci writes that during the tournament, CBS News & Sports President Sean McManus, CBS Sports Exec VP & Exec Producer Tony Petitti and CBS Sports Senior VP/Programming Mike Aresco sit in a control room with 40 monitors and determine “which games get switched to certain parts of the county.” CBS switched an additional 53% of the country to Texas A&M-Penn, originally available to 26% of the U.S., “as Penn was making its run.” Texas A&M won 68-52. An additional 15% were added at the conclusion of Butler-Old Dominion, meaning 94% of the country was tuned in. Petitti: “We try to react as fast as we can to capture those runs” (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 3/16). In Miami, Barry Jackson writes CBS “did an exceptional job switching” to competitive games, but he wonders why the Miami affil got Georgetown-Belmont –- “which oddsmakers predicted to be the most lopsided in that time slot” — over Texas A&M-Penn. Aresco: “Georgetown is a hot team, and people in South Florida have watched the Big East.” For tonight’s Florida-Jackson State, “only the CBS station in Gainesville is assured of showing every minute” (MIAMI HERALD, 3/16). In Baltimore, Ray Frager reports viewers in Baltimore were switched off Maryland-Davidson when there was “plenty of time left in what was a close game.” It was “just a minute or two, but it was still annoying.” When Georgetown-Belmont “descended into a blowout, it was just as clearly time” to switch local viewers to Butler-Old Dominion or Texas A&M-Penn (Baltimore SUN, 3/16).

DEF JAM: In San Jose, John Ryan notes while CBS is producing every tournament game in HD, the HD feed for each game is not available in every market. The network uses two feeds for the event: stations in a team’s local market are “constant” and the rest of the country is “flex,” meaning games can be switched. CBS “doesn’t have the capacity to send HDTV feeds on both the ‘flex’ and ‘constant’ plans.” And since over 80% of the country is watching in standard-def, “the only way to guarantee that the home market isn’t mistakenly taken away from its game is to send it in standard-def.” CBS Sports VP/Communications LeslieAnne Wade said that the setup “will continue throughout the weekend,” but starting next week all markets will get HD for all games (MERCURYNEWS.com, 3/15).

HD Feed For Each Game Not Necessarily Available In All Markets

COUNTER CULTURE: USA TODAY’s Michael Hiestand notes ESPN “decided to scrap its normal Thursday and Friday afternoon NCAA first-round counter programming — such as boxing — to simply talk about CBS’ games all afternoon.” ESPN is not allowed to show highlights while games are being played (USA TODAY, 3/16). Meanwhile, NBC aired an expanded repeat of “The Office” with new footage at 8:00pm ET, a new episode of “Scrubs” at 9:00 and series debuts of “Andy Barker P.I.” at 9:30 and “Raines” at 10:00. ABC aired new episodes of “Ugly Betty” at 8:00 and “Grey’s Anatomy” at 9:00, along with the series debut of “October Road” at 10:00. ABC will air the same “Grey’s Anatomy” episode Friday night. Fox aired a new episode of “Are You Smarter Than A 5TH Grader?” at 8:00, with two repeats of “Family Guy” at 9:00 (THE DAILY).

CANADA: In Toronto, Chris Zelkovich notes Canadian sports channels will air 16 NCAA men’s games by the end of the weekend, but only two from the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) tournament. The NCAA games are also available on CBS in Canada. CIS games “draw comparable audiences to the NCAA version.” The Score carried four of the eight CIS games last year but this year has rights to the NCAAs. TSN now has rights to the CIS but “because of auto racing commitments, it couldn’t carry anything more than one of tomorrow night’s semifinals and Sunday’s final.” Score Senior VP & GM David Errington said a CIS game is “expensive to produce and it’s difficult to get a return of the magnitude that you get with NCAA” (TORONTO STAR, 3/16). News-cast.com will produce Webcasts of the remaining CIS games and sell them for $7.95 each. News-cast President Doug Sutherland: “It’s not broadcast quality and it’s not intended to be” (OTTAWA SUN, 3/16).