March Madness On Demand Dunks Record Tournament Marks
Streaming Service Sets Records For Users, Consumption, 'Boss Button' Clicks
Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 4/10/2009 12:46:28 PM
CBS took a hit with UNC's early blowout of Michigan State in the national championship game, but CBSSports.com reveled in the Madness.
The March Madness on Demand streaming package, delivered in partnership by CBSSports.com, CBS College Sports Network and the NCAA, tallied 7.52 million unique visitors with its presentation of the 2009 Men's Division 1 Basketball Tournament, a 58% increase over the 4.76 million uniques for the 2008 event.
All told, users tallied 8.6 million hours of live video and audio consumed, 75% more than the 4.92 million hours during the 2008 tournament, according to CBSSports.com. Included in that total were 515,000 hours of audio and video for the Final Four and the title tilt, a 51% jump from the equivalent contests the year before, when they were added to the streaming package for the first time.
Relative to the "boss button" -- the Comcast-sponsored application that took users to a spread sheet housing tournament-related data when an employer was looming -- the total reached 2.77 million clicks, up from 2.5 million.
"Together with the NCAA, March Madness on Demand continues to set the bar for excellence for online video coverage of a sports event," said Jason Kint, senior vice president and general manager, CBSSports, in a statement. "We're thrilled by the record numbers we saw this year and appreciate the tremendous support we received from across CBS in helping to make this event as successful as it was."
Before the tournament, Kint had predicted that the user total would rise to 7.2 million uniques, as there were now some 300 points of access to the Internet streaming package, versus 200 in 2008.
Through the Final Four, CBS's lilnear coverage had been up 7%. However, with the Tar Heels pounding the Spartans from the get-go, many viewers tuned out of the championship game, which fell to an all-time ratings low of a 10.8/18 share and 17.6 million viewers. The game was down 11% from Kansas-Memphis overtime affair in 2008.
According to Nielsen data, CBS's March Madness basketball averaged a 5.7 rating /12 share and 8.9 million viewers this year. That was up 2% from last year's all-time low average, excluding 2003, when the war in Iraq interrupted Black Rock's full coverage. Among key men 18 to 34, 18 to 49 and 25 to 54, the tournament was off 14%, 4% and 2%, respectively.
