A trio of close finishes helped CBS and Turner combine for a 7.6 overnight rating on Thursday for its Sweet 16 coverage, up 9% from the same night last year. To date, the tourney is averaging a 6.5 overnight -- up 8% from '16 and ranking as the second-highest rated tourney since '91. Meanwhile, the March Madness Live app on Thursday night generated 5.6 million live video streams, a record for the Sweet 16's opening night and up 67% over '16 (THE DAILY). In Providence, Kevin McNamara wrote ratings to date show college basketball fans are "liking what they see in an NCAA Tournament largely devoid of anything resembling a backboard shattering upset." While it is "trendy to say you miss" a Sweet 16 appearance from a mid-major like Florida Gulf Coast or Ohio Univ., "that's really not true" (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, 3/23).
STILL IN BLACK: In Charlotte, Mark Washburn reports Raycom Media on Thursday "rejected a call by AT&T U-verse" that the blackout on WBTV-CBS will be lifted in Charlotte. Raycom Senior VP/TV Jeff Rosser in a letter to U-verse wrote, "We are not surprised that you wish to attempt to make WBTV and Raycom Media the ‘bad guys’ who you would like to portray as denying your paying customers for such high-demand, and expensive, programming." For eight days, WBTV has been "dark on AT&T U-verse in the Charlotte area." Raycom said that it is "negotiating on behalf of all its stations in 23 cities embroiled in the contract dispute." Friday night's North Carolina-Butler NCAA Tournament game is the first time UNC has been telecast on CBS in the tournament. Other games have been "carried on Turner channels" (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 3/24).
GETTING A TECHNICAL: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Kim Nash profiled Turner CTO Jeremy Legg as part of the "CIO Journal" feature. Legg "oversees the dissemination of video of live games and replays to 15 TV, mobile, and internet platforms." There is a "lag of 10 to 15 seconds in getting video feeds from arenas to viewers," and Turner "works with content delivery network Akamai Technologies to break video streams into lengths of six or eight seconds that can travel faster." A buffer of 10 or 15 seconds gives Legg’s team "time to fix problems, such as replacing segments of video that get lost in the crush or arrive out of order." This is the first NCAA Tournament in which Turner is "using online video management technology from iStreamPlanet," in which it bought a majority stake in '15 (WSJ.com, 3/22).
