TV Ratings: Record Low Men's Championship Still Wins The Week

The NCAA men’s basketball final drew record-low viewership but still had the biggest audience for a professional or college basketball game since last year’s college championship.

CBS’ coverage of Connecticut’s 76-59 victory over San Diego State averaged 14.69 million viewers, according to The L-A Times citing live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen. The previous low was a combined 16.5 million for Villanova’s 79-62 victory over Michigan in the 2018 final on TBS, TNT and truTV. Records date back to 1975.

The top-ranked non-sports prime-time program between April 3 and Sunday was “60 Minutes,” which averaged 7.57 million viewers, second for the week. The CBS news magazine followed a 48-minute runover of the network’s coverage of golf’s Masters Tournament in the Eastern and Central time zones.

CBS had eight of the week’s 11 highest-ranked programs to finish first for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 5.61 million viewers.

The only times CBS has not finished first in the last 11 weeks were the weeks of Feb. 6-13, when Fox aired Super Bowl LVII, and March 6-12, when ABC aired the Oscars.

• NBC was second for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 3.4 million viewers. “Chicago Fire” was its ratings leader for the third consecutive week, averaging 6.77 million viewers to finish third after back-to-back fifth-place finishes.
• ABC was third among the broadcast networks for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 2.85 million viewers. “American Idol” was ABC’s top program for the seventh time in the eight weeks it has aired this season, with the Sunday edition averaging 4.58 million viewers to finish 17th. The only interruption to the streak was the week that ABC aired the Oscars.
• Fox averaged 2.23 million viewers. “The Masked Singer” topped its ratings for the second consecutive week, finishing 26th, averaging 3.69 million viewers.

The 20 prime-time programs consisted of the NCAA men’s basketball final and pregame show; six CBS scripted programs, its news magazine “60 Minutes,” the two-hour special “A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys,” that followed “60 Minutes” and the alternative series “Survivor”; five NBC scripted programs and the Monday edition of its singing competition “The Voice”; the April 4 edition of the Fox News Channel political talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight”; and the two editions of the ABC singing competition, “American Idol.”.

📺BROADCAST NETWORK NEWS

ABC World News Tonight with David Muir remains the No. 1 news program in the evenings, averaging 7.92 million total viewers and 1.21 million A25-54 viewers for the week of April 3, 2023, reports TV Newser citing live-plus-same-day data from Nielsen.

That said, the evening newscast shed -4% in total viewers and -7% in A25-54 viewers from the previous week (March 27), and also shed less than -1% in total viewers and -13% among A25-54 viewers from the same week in 2022 (beginning April 4).  Despite the drop off , ABC World News Tonight, which finished the week as the most-watched program on all of U.S. broadcast and cable TV, has now defeated its evening news competition from NBC and CBS 176 of the past 177 weeks in average total viewers—and 105 of the last 107 weeks among Adults 25-54.

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt averaged 6.69 million total viewers (No. 4 among regularly-scheduled broadcast and cable TV programming) to go with 1.05 million A25-54 viewers during the week of April 3.  The CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell averaged 4.82 million total viewers with 796,000 Adults 25-54 for the week of April 3.

📺LATE NIGHT TV

Graphic Courtesy of RoadMN

📺CABLE TV

Fox News Channel won the cable network race for the second consecutive week and 10th time in 11 weeks, averaging 2.3 million viewers. MSNBC was second, averaging 1.45 million and HGTV third, averaging 885,000.

The cable prime-time top 20 consisted of 11 Fox News Channel weeknight political talk shows (five broadcasts each of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity” and one of “The Ingraham Angle”); three special reports on Trump’s court appearance — two on MSNBC and one on CNN; two MSNBC weeknight political talk shows (the April 3 edition of “The Rachel Maddow Show” and the Tuesday edition of “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell”); History’s “The Curse of Oak Island”; and all three hourlong segments of the USA Network professional wrestling show “WWE Raw.”

Graphics Courtesy of RoadMN

In terms of individual programming, Tucker Carlson Tonight marked its fifth consecutive week as cable news’ most-watched show, averaging 4.035 million total viewers at 8 p.m. this past week, according to TV Newser.

On Tuesday April 4, the network carried former President Trump’s post-arraignment remarks live from Mar-a-Lago. The decision to carry the remarks live paid off, ratings wise, as Fox earned its largest 8 p.m. audience since 2020 with over 6.7 million viewers.

The Five came in second with an average of 3.42 million viewers at 5 p.m. Jesse Watters Primetime secured third place with a 2.97 million total viewer average at 7 p.m., Hannity took fourth place by averaging 2.95 million total viewers at 9 p.m., with Special Report with Bret Baier rounding out cable news’ top five with a 2.425 million total viewer average.

Fox News had the 10 most-watched cable news shows of the week, including Your World with Neil Cavuto making an appearance at No. 8 (1.94 million viewers on average at 4 p.m.).

MSNBC’s Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace was the most-watched non-Fox News cable news offering with 1.84 million viewers from 4-6 p.m. (No. 11 overall).

Fox News had the top seven cable news shows among Adults 25-54. CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 took eighth place in the demo (276,000).

📺STREAMING TV

“The Night Agent” was Netflix’s most-streamed title for the third consecutive week, with viewers watching the 10-episode action thriller for 130.48 million hours in the second full week it was available, increasing its total since release to 515.57 million hours, ninth on the all-time list, which is based on viewership during the first 28 days of release.

“Murder Mystery 2” was Netflix’s most popular movie for the second consecutive week, with viewers spending 59.84 million hours watching the Adam Sandler-Jennifer Aniston-starring action-mystery-comedy in the first full week it was available. Viewership was down 7.4% from the 64.62 million hours the previous week when it was available for three days.