CBS' coverage of Monday night's NCAA men's basketball finals, featuring Duke-AZ, earned a 15.6/24 final Nielsen rating, marking an 11% increase from last year's 14.1/23, which featured MI State-FL. CBS estimates that about 42 million viewers tuned in for all or part of Monday's game, a 5% gain over the 40 million who watched last year. The net averaged a 6.5/14 for the entire '01 men's tournament, a 2% increase from last year's 6.4/14. Among men 18-34, the tournament earned a 5.1, up 13% from the last two years (4.5 each year) and the highest number for the demo since '98's 5.3 (CBS). In DC, Lisa de Moraes lists the tournament as one of her "winners," as the event "snagged" 4% more viewers than last year, averaging 9.1 million, compared to 8.8 million last year. de Moraes: "It's true that last year's audience was the franchise's smallest in at least 10 years, and its household rating was an all-time low. But up is up" (WASHINGTON POST, 4/4). The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER's Cynthia Littleton writes that viewership for Monday's game "rose 16% over last year as an average of 23.9 million people tuned in," and the broadcast also "produced double-digit growth in the key male and adult demos" over last year. The telecast is CBS' third highest-rated program of the season, behind Super Bowl XXXV and the post-Super Bowl premier of "Survivor II" (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 4/4). In N.Y., Richard Sandomir notes Monday's 15.6 "represented the second-lowest rating ever for the championship game" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/4). See (#34) for a list of Nielsen ratings for the championship game since '90 (THE DAILY).
NOT ALL RATINGS: In DC, Leonard Shapiro writes Monday's game "offered more than two hours of pulsating play, high drama and excellent production and announcing work." Throughout the tournament, CBS game announcers Jim Nantz and Billy Packer "clearly distinguished themselves, providing grand historical insight (mostly from Nantz) and typically pointed analysis from Packer" (WASHINGTON POST, 4/4).
WOMEN'S TOURNEY: ESPN's three women's Final Four games averaged a 2.64, up 9% from a 2.43 in '00. Friday's semifinals, featuring Southwest MO State-Purdue and Notre Dame-CT, earned a 2.20 and 2.41, respectively. Sunday's Purdue-Notre Dame final earned a 3.34 (ESPN). The semifinal ratings were up 24% from last year, and the final was down 3%. ESPN's tournament coverage drew an overall average rating of 1.1, "about even with last year," and ratings on ESPN2 were up about 25% (AP, 4/3). In St. Louis, Dan Caesar: "In one of the most shocking local sports television ratings developments in recent years, [the women's final] beat the [MLB] Cardinals season opener in the Nielsen wars, and by a significant amount." The women's game earned a 7 rating in St. Louis (about 78,400 HHs), while the Cardinals game got a 4.6 on FSN (about 51,500 HHs). But Caesar notes the women's game was in primetime, while the Cardinals game was in late afternoon (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 4/4).
