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Wednesday, March 27, 2019

TV Ratings: CBS Loves The Madness


One week into March Madness, CBS is feeling good.

Based on ratings from the nation’s largest media markets, the Nielsen company said CBS and the Turner Networks had the second best performance over the last 29 years for the first four games of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, according to The Associated Press. The only year to do better in that period was 2015.

⏩ According to CBS, Turner Sports and CBS Sports’ coverage of the 2019 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship continues to deliver significant audience increases across all platforms.

Live game coverage across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV is averaging a 6.4/15 HH rating/share in the metered markets, the second-highest rating through the first weekend since 1991, when the NCAA Tournament expanded to its current television format (6.7/14 in 2015). The 6.4/15 HH rating, based on Nielsen metered market delivery, is up 8% over last year (5.9/13).

NCAA March Madness Live has set all-time records in live streams and live hours of consumption for the NCAA Tournament to date, with both seeing increases of more than 25% through the first full week.

Additionally, Sunday’s third game telecast window from 5:15-9:15 PM, ET, highlighted by Duke’s down-to-the-wire victory over UCF, earned an 11.9/24 HH rating/share, up +35% from last year (8.8/18) and ranking as the second-highest rating for that game window in 29 years (12.1/23 in 2017).

Official NCAA March Madness social accounts have produced a 56% lift in engagements vs. last year’s Tournament to date through Sunday (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).

⏩ Last Friday, when word got out that special counsel Robert Mueller had completed his work and cable television began talking about it, Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel had 3.13 million viewers, just behind colleague Tucker Carlson’s 3.2 million. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC had 2.9 million, Nielsen said.

CBS easily won the week in prime-time, averaging 6.2 million viewers. ABC had 4.4 million viewers, NBC had 4.3 million, Fox had 2.8 million, ION Television had 1.4 million, Univision had 1.2 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million and the CW had 920,000.

Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.45 million viewers. TBS had 2.03 million, TNT had 1.87 million, MSNBC had 1.69 million and HGTV had 1.28 million.

⏩ Below, Basic Cable Top 10 – Total Viewers (Prime Time)
  1. Fox News (2,473,000)
  2. TBS (1,947,000)
  3. TNT (1,722,000)
  4. MSNBC (1,721,000)
  5. HGTV (1,298,000)
  6. History (1,208,000)
  7. USA (1,186,000)
  8. Investigation Discovery (1,048,000)
  9. truTV (1,046,000)
  10. Discovery (1,020,000)

⏩ ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.6 million viewers. The “NBC Nightly News” was secod with 7.9 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.3 million.

TV Newser graphic



⏩ Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for March 18-24:

1. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 10.25 million.
2. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 9.88 million.
3. “NCIS,” CBS, 8.46 million.
4. “This is Us,” NBC, 7.65 million.
5. “God Friended Me,” CBS, 7.53 million.
6. “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 7.16 million.
7. “American Idol” (Sunday), ABC, 7.08 million.
8. “Survivor,” CBS, 7.06 million.
9. “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, 7 million.
10. NCAA Men’s Basketball Tourney: Minnesota vs. Michigan St., CBS, 6.49 million.

11. “Bull,” CBS, 6.42 million.
12. NCAA Men’s Basketball Tourney: N. Dakota St. vs. Duke,” CBS, 6.22 million.
13. “FBI,” CBS, 6.17 million.
14. “American Idol” (Monday), ABC, 6.11 million.
15. “The Voice” (Wednesday), NBC, 6.109 million.
16. “911,” Fox, 5.97 million.
17. “Ellen’s Game of Games,” NBC, 5.69 million.
18. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 5.61 million.
19. “Station 19,” ABC, 5.55 million.
20. “The Resident,” Fox, 5.15 million.

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