CBS and Turner on Thursday night extended its record-setting audience for the NCAA Tournament, as the four game on the opening night of the Sweet 16 combined to average a 9.1 overnight rating on CBS and TBS. That marks a record overnight for Sweet 16 Thursday, dating back to '91. The 9.1 also is up 30% from last year. The early primetime window from 7:00-10:00pm ET, which featured Notre Dame-Wichita State (CBS) and Wisconsin-North Carolina (TBS), drew a 9.3 overnight, which is a new record for the window. The late window from 9:45pm-12:45am, which featured Kentucky-West Virginia (CBS) and Arizona-Xavier (TBS), drew an 8.9 overnight. That is tied with '92 and '93 as the best performance in the Thursday window on record. To date, the entire tourney is averaging a 7.0 overnight, a record through Sweet 16 Thursday and up 9% from '14. Meanwhile, March Madness Live has drawn 59 million live streams to date, up 10% from last year. There also have been a record 12.5 million hours of video consumption on MML (+11% from '14). Combined data from Facebook and Twitter show that 134 million total social impressions for the tourney to date, up 46% from last year.
OPENING WEEK BREAKDOWN: The Notre Dame-Butler Round of 32 matchup on TBS was the most-viewed game on cable TV during the first week of the NCAA Tournament, drawing 3.91 million viewers late Saturday night. The top cable game during the same period last year was Dayton-Syracuse, which drew 4.02 million viewers in the early Saturday primetime window. Perhaps most surprising was the audience for Wisconsin-Oregon on truTV, which drew 3.5 million viewers Sunday night and was the fourth-best tourney game on cable last week. It also was truTV’s best audience on record for any program. Meanwhile, the First Four averaged 1.31 million viewers this year on truTV, down 13% from last year but still the second-best average since the cable net starting airing the four-game set in ‘11. truTV drew two of its five most-viewed First Four telecasts this year with Ole Miss-BYU and Dayton-Boise State (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
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FIRST FOUR VIEWERSHIP TREND ON TRUTV
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YEAR
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FOUR-GAME AVG. VIEWERS (000)
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'15
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1,305
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'14
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1,493
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'13
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1,118
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'12
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984
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'11
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1,142
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LACKING SCHOOL SPIRIT: In St. Louis, Dan Caesar reports during the first weekend of play through Sunday, the Gateway City stood 25th among the 56 major markets measured by Nielsen, and while that "doesn’t sound very good on the surface, there are extenuating circumstances to consider." No team from the region "made the field this year so there is no 'hometown’ rooting interest to draw casual viewers." Also, St. Louis-based fans, whose city "isn’t much of a college basketball market to begin with," have actually had a "decent performance ... to be watching as much as they have" (
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 3/27).
APPLES & ORANGES: In N.Y., Richard Sandomir noted that none of the 38 college football bowl games carried by ESPN "had fewer viewers than the 1.1 million who tuned in for the inaugural Camellia Bowl," while nine of the early-round NCAA Tournament matchups "generated audiences below that figure." Some of the viewership differences between the bowls and the tourney "can be attributed to scheduling, matchups and networks carrying games." It also is "easier to find an audience in prime time than in the afternoon," and ESPN "is more of a sports destination than truTV" (N.Y. TIMES, 3/27).
