March Madness Tips With Top Opening Thursday Audience In 20 Years
Four-Net Coverage Averages 7.4 Million Watchers Across Four Windows; Demos Take Double-Digit Jump From 2010
Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 3/18/2011 4:09:35 PM
The early Nielsen returns for new NCAA teammates CBS Sports and Turner Sports are the best for the first Thursday of March Madness since 1991.
Second-round coverage of the 2011 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV on March 17 combined to average a 5.0 U.S. household rating/12.2 share, according to Nielsen Fast National data. That was 19% greater than CBS's solo coverage of the equivalent day in 2010. In aggregate, the four networks averaged 7.4 million total viewers, up 16% from last year. That was the biggest audience for the first Thursday of the NCAA Tournament since 1991, when the Madness migrated into four telecast windows.
Under their 14-year, $10.8 billion contract with the NCAA, CBS and Turner, for the first time in the tourney's 73-year history, will give each of the 67 games its own national window.
The four telecast windows showed growth versus last year and increased in succession on St. Patrick's Day.
The first telecast window of the day --noon- 4:15 p.m. (ET) -- combined to average a 3.8 rating/13.6 share, up 36% from a 2.8/10.1 last year.
For its part, the second window - 3 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. - notched a 4.4/13/0, a 46% leap from a 3.0/9.1 in 2010.
The third telecast window, from 7 p.m.-9:45 p.m., delivered a 5.8/11.2, up 2% more than 2010's 5.7/10.6, while the final showings from 9:15 p.m. -12:30 a.m. averaged a 5.9/11.1 share, increasing 5% from a 5.6/11.2.
The new presentation of March Madness also registered a series of gains among key demos when gauged against CBS's 2010 opening Thursday numbers: up 29% to 1.92 million persons 18 to 34; 13% to 3.51 million persons 18 to 49; 12% to 3.54 million adults 25 to 54; 31% to 1.39 million guys 18 to 34; 17% to 2.52 million males 18 to 49: and 17% to 2.50 million men 25 to 54.
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