Fox News Channel held off sports-dominant TNT, TBS and ESPN to regain the top spot on the primetime basic-cable ratings charts while continuing its winning streak in total-day viewing.

Fox News averaged 2 million viewers in primetime during the week of April 8-April 14 to finish first for the first time since late March, according to Nielsen numbers supplied by Fox News. TBS (1.2 million viewers) and TNT (1.1 million viewers) finished in second and third place respectively, fueled by their April 8 simulcast of the UConn-Purdue NCAA men’s college basketball title game. The game, which also aired on truTV, drew a cumulative 14.8 million viewers. 

MSNBC finished fourth for the week with 1.1 million viewers, followed by ESPN with 1 million watchers. HGTV was sixth with 786,000 viewers, followed by History (690,000 viewers), Hallmark Channel (667,000), USA Network (661,000) and CNN (632,000). 

Fox News was the most-watched network on a 24-hour basis for the 14th straight week, averaging 1.3 million viewers. MSNBC was second with 800,000 viewers, followed by ESPN (696,000 viewers), CNN (494,000) and TBS (422,000), according to Nielsen. 

TBS’s coverage of the March Madness men’s college basketball tournament helped it narrowly surpass Fox News Channel to top the primetime basic-cable ratings. 

TBS averaged 2.09 million viewers in primetime for the week of March 25-31 to squeak by Fox News’s 2 million viewers, according to Nielsen numbers supplied by Fox News. 

Live Event: Attend the Business of TV News Event in Washington on May 2

ESPN finished third for the week with 1.8 million viewers, followed by MSNBC’s 1.2 million viewers and HGTV's 715,000 watchers. 

History was sixth with 666,000 viewers, followed by Hallmark Channel (641,000 viewers), USA Network (558,000), CNN and INSP (535,000 viewers each.)

Fox News continued its winning ways on a total-day basis, topping the chart with 1.3 million viewers. MSNBC finished second with 850,000, followed by ESPN (702,000), TBS (682,000) and CNN (482,000), reported Nielsen. 

Monday night’s Elite 8 women’s NCAA tournament basketball matchup between Iowa and LSU yielded an average audience of 12.3 million viewers for ESPN, according to Nielsen, making it the most-watched women’s basketball game ever.

The highly anticipated game featured Iowa star guard Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes  avenging a 2023 title game loss to LSU and its star, Angel Reese. That title game, also presented by ESPN, delivered an average audience of 9.9 million viewers.

The previous record stood for 41 years — that was USC and Cheryl Miller’s title game victory over Louisiana Tech (and current LSU coach Kim Mulkey) back in 1983, which averaged 11.83 million viewers.

Both Clark and Reese will be playing in the WNBA next season, soon to be joined by incendiary USC freshman JuJu Watkins and UConn’s Paige Bueckers, two stars who also faced off in another Elite 8 game Monday.

UConn’s 80-73 victory over the Trojans averaged 6.7 million viewers. It's been a fruitful tournament for ESPN, which just re-upped the Division I Women's Basketball postseason as part of a multiyear package that values the tourney at around $65 million a year. 

Monday night’s audience swelled to 12.5 million viewers, according to iSpot, growing steadily throughout the telecast.

Warner Bros. Discovery has acquired television rights to the Bellator Championship Series mixed martial arts franchise, adding to its lineup of live sports content.

Max will stream Bellator’s first event under the new deal on March 22 from Belfast, one of eight Bellator Championship Series events taking place during the year, according to WBD. Each event will take place from various locations around the world and highlight the best fighters from each region.

In addition, other Bellator content – which formerly aired on Paramount-owned Showtime prior to the company’s sale last November of the franchise to the Professional Fighters League – will air on TruTv throughout the year. Max will also stream two new all-access docuseries, Fight Camp Confidential and Fight Week, that will debut March 21 in advance of the first live event, said WBD. 

The Bellator content adds to WBD-owned TNT Sports lineup of live sports programming, which includes Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, NCAA men's college basketball, and NASCAR events.

Also: Sports Executive of the Year: Game On, Says Luis Silberwasser, TNT Sports Chief

“We are thrilled to partner with Professional Fighters League to introduce a new live sport to the U.S. Warner Bros. Discovery content portfolio,” Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming chief financial & strategy officer Josh Walker said in a statement. “The addition of Bellator Champions Series offers our viewers an opportunity to experience highly anticipated mixed martial arts, nicely complementing our robust slate of can’t miss programming.” 

Sunday’s women’s NCAA college basketball championship game between the LSU Tigers and Iowa Hawkeyes drew a record 9.9 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and its digital services, according to Nielsen Fast National numbers.  

The game, in which LSU won its first women’s March Madness, was up 103 percent higher in viewership than last year’s South Carolina-Connecticut finals. 

The game follows an NCAA women’s tournament Final Four round that set ratings records for ESPN. The cable sports networks averaged 4.5 million viewers for its two March 31 semifinal round games, the most viewed women’s Final Four in network history. 

The Iowa-South Carolina game drew 5.5 million viewers — an ESPN record for a semi-final game — while the LSU-Virginia Tech game averaged 3.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen. 

The live sports lineup for April’s first weekend starts on the basketball court as March Madness — the NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments — continues with the Final Four.

CBS on Saturday will televise the men’s national semifinal matchups, featuring Atlantic-San Diego State and Miami-UConn games. CBS will also televise the men’s championship game on Monday night from Houston.

In the women’s bracket, the Final Four gets underway in Dallas Friday evening with the LSU-Virginia Tech and Iowa-South Carolina semifinals on ESPN. The women’s national championship will air Sunday afternoon on ABC. 

Also this weekend, Major League Baseball opens the first weekend of its 2023 regular season with a Saturday afternoon Fox telecast between the San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees and an FS1 Saturday night airing of the Cleveland Indians-Seattle Mariners game. ESPN will open its Sunday Night Baseball season with Philadelphia Phillies-Texas Rangers. 

On the racetrack, NBC will feature the PPG 375 IndyCar series event, while ESPN will offer the Australian Grand Prix Formula One race.

Fox on Sunday will televise the Pro Bowlers Association USBC Masters event, while CBS will air the Premier Bankcard Invitational Professional Bull Riders event. 

On the soccer field, CBS on Saturday will televise the Portland-Kansas City NWSL game. USA, NBC and Peacock will offer a total of eight Premier League games throughout the weekend. 

On the ice, ABC on Saturday will televise the St. Louis Blues-Nashville Predators game, while on Sunday TNT will air the N.Y. Rangers-Washington Capitals contest. ■ 

TBS’s coverage of March Madness, the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, helped the network defeat Fox News Channel in primetime last week, Nielsen reported.

TBS averaged 3.1 million viewers for the week of March 20-March 26, ending Fox News’s seven-week run as the most watched cable network in primetime. The cable news network finished second with 2 million viewers, followed by MSNBC and ESPN, which tied for fourth with 1.2 million viewers, reported Nielsen.

FS1, on the strength of the 5.2 million viewers that tuned into the USA-Japan World Baseball Classic tournament final, finished fifth with 1 million viewers, followed by HGTV (940,000 viewers), Hallmark Channel (733,000), Food Network (679,000), INSP (678,000) and Discovery Channel (636,000).

On the total-day front, Fox News extended its winning streak to 11 weeks, averaging 1.3 million viewers. TBS finished a distant second with 872,000 viewers, filled by MSNBC (769,000), ESPN (539,000) and HGTV (482,000), according to Nielsen. ■ 

The March Madness college basketball tournament enters its elite-eight round this weekend as part of the busy lineup of live sports events airing on broadcast and cable networks.

The NCAA Men’s college basketball tournament action begins Saturday on TBS with Fla. Atlantic facing Kansas State and UConn battling Gonzaga. Sunday’s action will pit the winners of Friday night’s San Diego State-Alabama and Princeton-Creighton  games in one elite eight matchup, and the winners of the Miami-Houston and Xavier-Texas games in the other contest.

In other sports, Showtime on Saturday will offer a pay-per-view boxing fight card featuring the super middleweight bout between David Benavidez and Caleb Plant. In the octagon, ESPN will air a Saturday afternoon UFC Fight Night card featuring a main event bout between bantamweights Marlon Vera and Cory Sandhagen. 

On the racetrack, Fox on Sunday will televise the NASCAR Cup EchoPark Grand Prix auto racing event. On the ice, ABC on Saturday will televise live the Washington Capitals-Pittsburgh Penguins NHL game.

On the football field, the XFL enters week six with three games, including ABC’s Saturday Seattle Sea Dragons-Orlando Guardians and Sunday San Antonio Brahmas-Arlington Renegades telecasts, as well as FX’s Saturday St. Louis Battlehawks-Vegas Vipers game. 

The National Women’s Soccer League kicks off its 2023 season Saturday on CBSSN, which will air the Chicago Red Stars-San Diego Wave FC. ■ 

Fox News Channel withstood a challenge from March Madness-heavy TNT and TBS to remain at the top of the primetime and total-day charts last week, according to Nielsen.

Fox News averaged 1.9 million viewers for the week of March 13-20 to garner its eighth-straight win in primetime, according to Nielsen. TNT finished a close second with 1.8 million viewers, followed by TBS’s 1.7 million viewers and truTV’s 1.1 million watchers. All three networks benefited from early round coverage of the March Madness NCAA men’s college basketball tournament.

MSNBC finished fifth for the week with 1.1 million viewers, followed by HGTV (935,000 viewers), INSP (742,000), FS1 (739,000), History (722,000) and ESPN (710,000).

Fox News topped the total day chart for the 10th straight week with 1.2 million viewers, followed by MSNBC (695,000 viewers), TBS (655,000), TNT (607,000) HGTV (495,000), said Nielsen. ■ 

In the midst of its March Madness men’s college basketball tournament coverage, CBS on March 25 will air a documentary chronicling the career of legendary women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer.

The Coaches Plus Media-produced documentary, Dear Coach Stringer, will profile the Naismith Memorial Basketball and Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame coach, beginning with her first head coaching position at Cheyney State (now Cheyney University) where she led the first and only HBCU team to the NCAA Women’s Final Four. Overall Stringer is the first coach in men’s or women’s basketball history to lead three different schools to the Final Four — Cheyney State, Iowa and Rutgers, said Coaches Plus Media.

The documentary, which will also stream on Paramount Plus, will feature interviews with Stringer’s family, friends, former players and coaches, along with letters of appreciation and thanks that she has received over her illustrious career. 

“C. Vivian Stringer is a giant in our game,” Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Executive Director Danielle Donehew said in a statement. “We can measure her many achievements and successes, but we will never be able to fully quantify what she means as a role model and inspiration to so many coaches who have followed in her footsteps.” 

Dear Coach Stringer follows CBS’s airing of Think. See.Do. – The Legacy of Pete Carril, which looks at the life and career of the legendary Princeton University coach. Both documentaries are produced by the Coaches Plus Media production company. ■

Advertisers continue to be mad for March Madness, with the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament drawing record revenue, according to executives from Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, which team up to televise the event.

Despite a generally soft TV ad market, this year’s sales revenue for the tournament has already surpassed last year’s record level, according to John Diament, executive VP, advertising sales at Warner Bros. Discovery. Prices for 30-second commercials are up by mid-to-high single-digit percentages on a cost-per-thousand viewer (CPM) basis, Diament said.

Last year, spots in the tournament's championship game sold for more than $2 million.

Commercial inventory is “virtually” sold out, added John Bogusz, executive VP, CBS Sports sales at Paramount Advertising. He said inventory is very tight during the first weekend. There are a few spots available as the tournament gets down to the Sweet Sixteen. The Final Four weekend and the championship game, airing on CBS, are just about sold out, he said. 

A few spots are reserved for makegoods to ensure that all advertiser reach the number of viewers they are guaranteed.

Also Read: March Madness Scores Big for Advertisers: Effectv Study

Paramount and WBD start with a leg up because the NCAA has 17 official sponsors who buy media time in the tournament, with games on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. 

The top — champion — sponsors are Capital One, Coca-Cola and and halftime sponsor AT&T. The other NCAA corporate sponsors are Aflac, Buffalo Wild Wings, Buick, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Great Clips, Invesco, LG, Marriott, Nabisco, Nissan, Pizza Hut, Reese’s, Unilever and Wendy’s.

Among the strong categories are autos, quick service restaurants, movies and technology.

Diament noted that the tournament tent to reach an upscale demographic. 

Bogusz added that the live nature of sports continues to attract viewers and entrall advertisers. 

Paramount’s CBS has the next Super Bowl. “We’re open for business,” Bogusz said.

Nearly all of the advertisers on the TV broadcasts are also sponsors of March Madness on Demand, where the tournament games are streamed online. “Demand for those types of digital products is through the roof,” Diament said.

This year's March Madness will be the last for Jim Nantz, the veteran CBS sportscaster who has hosted the tournament for decades. It's likely that Nantz and popular Turner Sports personalities including Charles Barkley will show up in commercials and integrations. ■

March Madness, a big, live sports event on linear TV, still delivers big time for advertisers, according to a new study from Effectv, the advertising sales arm of Comcast Cable.

According to the stat sheet put together by Effectv, advertisers that include the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament in their campaigns receive as much as 87% greater reach than those that do no. Commercials airing during coverage on CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV are 55% more likely to be seen in light TV-viewing households.

“The March Madness timeframe is small but mighty, with its ability to reach wide audiences efficiently,” Travis Flood, executive director of insights at Comcast Advertising, said. “The engaged, live environment captivates viewers and encourages them to gather around the big screen — even those who don’t typically consume TV. Given the fragmentation in TV viewing today, this is an incredibly powerful tool for advertisers.”

Households watch an average of 9.25 hours of hoops over the course of the tournament, and March Madness ads reach nearly 2.5 times more households per commercial than the average program. 

Also: Measurement March Madness Produces Fresh NCAA Viewing Stats

Streaming on networks airing March Madness increased 86% during the tournament, and even businesses tuned in. According to the study, 67% of businesses tune into games during the first and second rounds.

“With March Madness, advertisers are reaching viewers who would not otherwise be seeing TV advertising,” Flood added. “Incremental reach is on everyone’s mind in 2023, and this event provides an opportunity to reach audiences more than twice as efficiently as an average ad. This is an opportunity that can benefit advertisers of all sizes.”

The study is based on Comcast’s aggregated viewership data, plus third-party sources, during the 2022 tournament. ■

An analysis of ads run on NBCUniversal brands by iSpot.tv indicated that "advertisers today are underinvesting in streaming" and missing out on valuable audiences, iSpot.tv CEO Sean Muller told B+C business editor Jon Lafayette in a keynote at the recent Advanced Advertising Summit in Los Angeles.

The measurement firm's "test and learn" experiment with NBCU found that streaming outlets got about 10% of a campaign's ads on average, when a more optimal level would be 30%-40%, Muller said at the June 7 event. "You get a lot more reach against younger demographics and at lower frequencies," Muller said. 

Also: NBCU Says 30%-40% of Campaigns Should be OTT Based on iSpot.tv Data 

Separately, Comcast recently estimated that the optimal portion of the ad spend on streaming was 20%-30%, and said returns declined beyond a 40% share.

Muller also read out some stats from iSpot.tv's measurement of Olympics, Super Bowl and March Madness college basketball that showed the importance of cross-screen measurement of viewing of big events. For the Beijing Winter Olympics, for example, iSpot.tv measured 27.4 million viewers on streaming, and 65.9% of them only watched the games on streaming. Super Bowl LVI in February had 10.4 million average viewer minutes, and 70% of them were cord cutters. March Madness drew 12.3% of its audience from streaming (68% of those only watched on streaming). 

"It's important to get cross screen right and it's important to [deduplicate] these audiences," Muller said.

There were 31.7 million out of home viewers for the Beijing games, 12.5 million for the Super Bowl and 40.6 million for March Madness, he said.

Putting in a plug for measuring ad ratings separately, as iSpot.tv does, Muller said the most watched ad in the Super Bowl (an NFL ad during halftime) had a 22% bigger audience than the least watched ad, which is a big swing during a game that has a fairly steady audience throughout. 

Muller also noted that iSpot.tv was the first to report an audience figure for the Super Bowl (150 million) and didn't revise the number later, while Nielsen revised its number twice as more data became available. The iSpot.tv database is smart-TV centric, bolstered with panel data, census data and set-top box data, he said.

Muller said iSpot.tv was able to attract a recent $325-million investment from Goldman Sachs Asset Management because the audience measurement field is a $10 billion industry and is in flux with new developing technologies and changing viewer dynamics. Those conditions also led to private equity interests buying industry Nielsen for $16 billion, he said.

"This space is great," Muller said, unlike the music business where he started his career. 

The Advanced Advertising Summit was part of L.A. TV Week. The next Advanced Advertising Summit will be held in September in New York City as part of Fall TV Week. ■

Telecom companies building their broadband networks for the stresses of tomorrow often point to the use cases of live-streamed major sports events. And the April 4 NCAA Mens Basketball Championship showdown, featuring Kansas edging fellow blue blood program North Carolina 72-69, provides as good of an example as any. 

According to OpenVault, a Hoboken, N.J.-based company that helps telecom clients measure and optimize their broadband usage and efficiency, broadband usage across the state of Kansas surged 24% over the previous three-week average as the game reached its final minutes at 10 p.m. local time. 

Other Interesting Points from OpenVault's Q1 2022 'Broadband Insights' Report

The percentage of U.S. broadband users subscribing to ISP tiers of 1 gigabit-per-second and above has reached 13.4%, up from the 9.8% reported in OpenVault's Q1 2021 report.

And "power users," those subscribers who go through 1 terabyte or more of data per month, increased from 12.4% to 14.6% of the market, year over year, according to OpenVault. And "super power users" -- those who consume 2 TB or above per month -- went from 1.8% to 2.4% of the market. (Both figures represent a weighted average of customers billed on both flat-rate and usage-based plans.)

In a March Madness for measurement companies, Turner Sports and CBS Sports brought in iSpot.tv, VideoAmp and Comscore to measure their NCAA men’s basketball tournament coverage.

The three potential alternatives to Nielsen turned up some fresh insights into viewers behavior and trends.

VideoAmp said that 47% of all households watched the tournament. iSpot found that the tournament generated 8.6 times more ad impressions that the No. 2 show, which was Good Morning America.

Also: North Carolina-Duke Draws Most Final Four Viewers Since 2017

Linear and streaming households watched an average of 16.91 games during the tournament.

Because the alternative measurement companies aim to provide cross-platform viewing data, some interesting observations about streaming emerged.

Comscore found that one-third of new households that did not watch in 2019 viewed on streaming platforms during the tournament in 2022.

Linear homes drove most viewing, but home that watch on both streaming and linear significantly over-indexed on time spent, accounting for 19% of total time spent viewing the games, VideoAmp said.

For advertisers, iSpot calculated that the NCAA tournament totaled 1.3 times more impressions than the Olympics. And Comscore said social engagement levels peaked at the beginning of the tournament and then again with the Sweet 15, with 56 million social actions made during the tournament.

Both Paramount, parent of CBS Sports, and Discovery, parent of Turner Sports, are exploring using alternative measurement data as potential currencies in the upfront. Traditionally providing currencies has been Nielsen’s role, but after losing its accreditation from the Media Rating Council, Nielsen is vulnerable to competition as it ramps up its own Nielsen One system for cross-platform measurement of content and advertising.

iSpot performed a similar test for NBCU during last year's Summer Olympics and in the first quarter when NBC air the Olympics and the Super Bowl. ■

Below is a snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of April 4-10, showcasing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and network and show TV ad impressions insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 19 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

The Masters, one of the PGA Tour’s premier events, drives to the top spot in this week’s watch-time ranking. From April 4-10, the Masters accounted for 3.39% of TV minutes watched — more than three times the next most-watched program (the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament).

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• March Madness closed out strong, as the national title game between Kansas and North Carolina netted 0.98% of the week’s watch-time.
• Along with the Masters itself, coverage from the tournament was also a major draw for viewers, with Golf Channel’s Live From the Masters finishing No. 3 by minutes watched.
• Despite the regular season only starting on Thursday, Major League Baseball still caught 0.82% of the week’s watch-time (No. 7 overall).
• TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days was another newcomer to our rankings this week, picking up 0.41% of minutes watched.

Masters coverage was a boost to CBS watch-time, as the network collected 8.14% of all minutes watched from April 4-10. That’s the fifth straight week that CBS has led in our ranking, due at least in part to major sporting events (the Masters and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament).

More insights around the most-watched networks from April 4-10:

• ESPN remained at No. 6 in this week’s rankings, but also increased watch-time from 2.64% to 3.40% week-over-week thanks to its own Masters coverage -- including both early-round tournament play and special SportsCenter airings on location at the event.
• On a similar note, Golf Channel jumped into the top 50 (thanks, again, to Masters coverage) after not being listed the previous week.
• TBS’s airing of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament’s national title game kept the network among the top 10 by minutes watched for the week.
• Leaning on its typical syndicated comedy programming, TV Land made modest week-over-week watch-time gains, climbing from No. 23 to No. 22 by minutes watched.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

Courtesy of a simulcast across TBS, TNT and truTV, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament’s championship game delivered the most TV ad impressions, with over 2.6% of the total for the week.

More data about the top programs by TV ad impressions:

• With four days of golf action across four different networks, the Masters scored the third-most impressions for the week (1.85% of the total).
• Speaking of sports, it‘s a major point of emphasis for the week, as five of the top 10 programs by impressions are sports-related.
• Another week with two shows (April 4 and 10) meant another week of American Idol finishing in the top five for TV ad impressions.
• The arrival of the regular season meant Major League Baseball games returning to national TV, where matchups served up more than 450 million ad impressions from Thursday through Sunday.

CBS parked itself at No. 1 again in our ad-impressions-by-network ranking for April 4-10, delivering 13.7% of TV ad impressions during the time period.

Additional insights around the top networks by impressions from the week:

• Talk and news programs accounted for nearly 50% of ABC TV ad impressions from April 4-10, led by Good Morning America (14.9% of ABC impressions).
• The Masters had a competitor on CBS, as The Price Is Right delivered 10.97% of impressions to lead all programs on the network (The Masters was second with 10.11%).
• From April 4-10, nearly 18% of Fox News Channel impressions for the week came during Monday programming (almost as much as Saturday and Sunday combined).
• Bravo TV ad impressions leapt by more than 20% week-over-week, with shows in the Real Housewives franchise accounting for 40% of impressions from April 4-10. ▪️

Fox News Channel kept its place atop the weekly primetime basic-cable ratings, defeating March Madness-infused TBS for the second straight week.

Fox News averaged 2.3 million viewers in primetime for the week of April 4-10 to finish first, ahead of TBS (1.5 million viewers) and TNT (1.2 million). Both TBS and TNT were aided by the combined 17 million viewers who tuned into the networks’ simulcast with truTV of the April 4 Kanasas-North Carolina NCAA Men‘s Basketball Tournament title game, according to Nielsen.

HGTV and ESPN finished tied for fourth place with 1.1 million viewers, while MSNBC grabbed the sixth spot with 1 million viewers. TLC (935,000 viewers), Hallmark Channel (853,000), INSP (817,000) and Food Network (761,000) rounded out the top 10 most-watched cable networks.

Fox News won its 15th straight weekly total-day ratings crown with an average of 1.5 million viewers. Finishing well off the pace were MSNBC (660,000 viewers), ESPN (654,000), HGTV (592,000), and CNN (586,000), Nielsen said. ▪️

Below is a snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of March 28-April 3, showcasing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and network and show TV ad impressions insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 19 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Even with just two NCAA Tournament games airing from March 28-April 3, men’s college basketball retains its watch-time lead for yet another week. Games accounted for over 1.7% of TV audience tune-in, which was No. 1 overall, edging out the NBA (1.18% of minutes watched).

Also: North Carolina-Duke Draws Most Final Four Viewers Since 2017

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• The NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament jumps from No. 11 to No. 8 week-over-week while crowning a champion (the South Carolina Gamecocks) on Sunday.
• This year’s Grammy Awards telecast is the lone week-over-week newcomer in our program ranking, taking home 0.63% of the week’s watch-time during Sunday night’s broadcast.
• American Idol surges from No. 33 by minutes watched to No. 17, collecting 0.50% of TV watch-time for the week.
• Comfort food stand-by Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives soars from No. 39 to No. 20 by minutes watched week-over-week.

Yet again, it’s CBS atop our ranking of the most-watched networks, with 7.01% of all minutes watched from March 28-April 3. The Grammys are the biggest source of minutes watched there, but far from the only major draw for CBS, which also airs daytime TV titans like The Price Is Right and The Young and The Restless.

More insights around the most-watched networks from March 28-April 3:

• TBS leaned on Final Four games to keep its place among the 10 most-watched networks (No. 9 this week after being No. 6 the previous week).
• Similarly, TNT rode Final Four simulcast views and late-season NBA action to No. 19 in our watch-time rankings (up from No. 28 the previous week).
• The same goes for truTV, which climbs from outside of the top 50 most-watched networks March 21-27, to No. 24 this week.
• ESPN hops from No. 8 to No. 6 by watch-time, due in part to NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament games (including the championship game between South Carolina and Connecticut).

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

The Final Four means men’s college basketball games continue to deliver TV ad impressions, as NCAA Tournament games accounted for over 4.7% of impressions for the week (2x more than the No. 2 program).

More data about the top programs by TV ad impressions:

• The Grammys arrive at No. 7, with nearly 721 million impressions, while also airing fewer ads per hour than any other program in this week’s top 25.
• Basketball continues to provide an impressions bounce, as men’s and women’s college basketball and the NBA account for almost 8% of all TV ad impressions from March 28-April 3.
• Daytime soap operas take three of the top 25 spots in our rankings, led by The Young and The Restless (No. 10), then General Hospital (No. 18) and Days of Our Lives (No. 24).
• Multiple episodes of American Idol led to TV ad impressions rising by almost 95% week-over-week as the reality show sits at No. 4 by impressions for the week.

CBS is No 1 once more in our ad-impressions-by-network ranking for March 28-April 3, delivering 15.3% of TV ad impressions.

Additional insights around the top networks by impressions from the week:

• TBS, truTV and TNT combined for about 6% of all TV ad impressions for the week after all aired the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament’s Final Four matchups between North Carolina and Duke, and Kansas and Villanova, respectively.
• ESPN’s own basketball emphasis (NCAA Women’s Tournament and NBA) helped fuel a week-over-week rise in share of TV ad impressions — from 3.7% to 4.4%.
• Wrestling and Premier League soccer coverage contributed to USA Network’s week-over-week climb from No. 20 to No. 17 by impressions, as live events and surrounding shows accounted for over 40% of the network’s impressions.

The NCAA men’s basketball championship happens Monday (April 4). Kansas and North Carolina face off in the March Madness final at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. 

The game begins at  9:20 p.m. ET and TBS airs the action. NCAA March Madness Live has the stream. 

Kansas is a No. 1 seed and North Carolina is a No. 8. Kansas has gone 33-6 this season and North Carolina is 29-9. 

The March Madness action started in mid March with the First Four play-in games, and the official NCAA championship tipping off March 17. Games have been on CBS and the Turner networks, including TNT, TBS and TruTV.

CBS and Turner have shared the March Madness package for 11 years. “It would be impossible to find better partners than Turner has been for us,” said Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports, at a press event before the tournament tipped off. 

The TBS pre-game coverage April 4 begins at 7 p.m., with Charles Barkley, Clark Kellogg, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson breaking down the game. The pre-game features interviews with both coaches -- Bill Self from Kansas and Hubert Davis from North Carolina. 

Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery and Grant Hill will be in the booth for the final, with Tracy Wolfson reporting. 

It is TBS’s first time airing the final game since 2018. CBS had the final in 2019, it did not happen in 2020 due to the pandemic, and CBS had last year’s championship as well. ■

Coverage of North Carolina’s victory over Duke Saturday drew the most viewers to a NCAA Men’s Final Four telecast on any network since 2017.

The game delivered an average of 16.3 million viewers on TBS, TNT and truTV, also making it the second most viewed college basketball telecast in the history of cable TV once out-of-home viewership is included, Turner Sports said, projecting an addition of 10% when the final viewership totals are tabulated.

Also: March Madness Sold Out With Record Ad Revenue for CBS, Turner

The earlier game on Saturday, with Kansas topping Villanova, delivered 10.3 million viewers, up 22% from the 2021 early semifinal. 

The two games averaged 13.5 million viewers, up 9% from last year's March Madness.

The online app NCAA March Madness Live registered its largest audience ever and the most minutes consumed in its history. It generated 1.4 million concurrent streams during the Tar Heels' win over the Blue Demons. 

This year’s tournament has already drawn the most live uniques for any March Madness tournament. 

Engagement with official NCAA Men’s March Madness social media handles are up 36% versus the previous Final Four record and up 63% for the entire tournament. ■

Once again this weekend’s TV sports programming spotlight is on the March Madness college basketball tournament, as Saturday night’s games will determine who plays in Monday's finals.

TBS will carry both semi-final games, beginning with Villanova-Kansas followed by North Carolina-Duke. TBS will also air Monday’s finals matchup from New Orleans.

ESPN will televise the women's college basketball finals matchup on Sunday. The game will feature the winners of Friday's Final Four games featuring Louisville-South Carolina and Stanford-UConn. 

On the links, Golf Channel and NBC will offer the final rounds of the PGA Texas Open tournament, while the National Women’s Soccer League kicks off its 2022 campaign Saturday with the Challenge Cup tournament, from which CBS will air the Angel City-San Diego game.

Fox will provide Sunday afternoon coverage of the NASCAR Cup Toyota Owners 400 race, as well as coverage of the Pro Bowlers Association tour’s USBC Masters tournament. 

On the ice, ABC on Saturday will televise the Pittsburgh Penguins-Colorado Avalanche game while on Sunday TNT will televise the New York Islanders-New Jersey Devils contest.

ABC on Sunday will offer an NBA doubleheader featuring the Dallas Mavericks-Milwaukee Bucks and Denver Nuggets-L.A. Lakers contests. 

Also, USA Network will feature live weekend coverage of games from soccer’s Premier League. 

TBS rode its March Madness basketball tournament coverage to a first place finish on last week’s cable primetime ratings chart, according to Nielsen.

TBS, which air live games from rounds three and four of the men’s college basketball tournament, averaged 2.9 million viewers in primetime for the week of March 21 to March 27, stopping Fox News’ nine-week winning streak in the category. The cable news network finished second with 2.9 million viewers, followed by MSNBC and HGTV, which tied with 1.1 million viewers. 

CNN finished fifth with 889,000 viewers, followed by ESPN (862,000 viewers), TLC (840,000), INSP (774,000), Discovery Channel (768,000) and History (748,000), said Nielsen.  

Fox News held off TBS on a total day basis to remain undefeated in 2022. MSNBC, CNN and HGTV rounded out the top five most watched networks in the category, reported Nielsen. ■  

Below is a snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of March 21-27, showcasing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and network and show TV ad impressions insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 19 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament continues to be a cut above other programming, with 5.13% of TV audiences tuned in from March 21-27. That was No. 1 on the week — nearly 5x more than the No. 2 program, the PGA Tour’s WGC Match Play.

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• This year’s NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament has recorded more watch-time gains, jumping from 0.53% to 0.62% of minutes watched week-over-week.
• The Oscars starred on Sunday night, landing at No. 5 for watch-time on the week.
• Along with the Oscars, there were two additional week-over-week newcomers to our top 25 most-watched rankings — Forensic Files (up from No. 36) and NCIS: Los Angeles (from No. 40).
• Speaking of, there are 10 different procedurals featured among this week’s top 25 programs, led by Law & Order: Special Victims Unit at No. 3.

CBS stays top-dog in our ranking of the most-watched networks, with 8.85% of minutes watched from March 21-27. Of course, that’s due in large part to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, with two more rounds of games from Thursday through Sunday.

More insights around the most-watched networks from March 21-27:

• With TBS and CBS splitting Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games for the men’s tournament, TBS moves up to No. 6 by minutes watched in our network ranking.
• News remains a focus, as Fox News and CNN remain in the top 10 by watch-time, while MSNBC rises from No. 18 to No. 15 week-over-week.
• Paramount Network leaned into Yellowstone once again to fuel a leap from No. 40 to No. 24 by week-over-week watch-time.
• INSP also emphasized Westerns (Gunsmoke, in particular) to power its own climb from No. 27 by minutes watched from March 14-20, to No. 25 this week.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

Even with fewer tournament games than the previous week, men’s college basketball still outpaced all other programming in terms of delivering TV ad impressions from March 21-27, with 7.52 billion -- or 14.1% of all impressions for the week.

More data about the top programs by TV ad impressions:

• The Oscars sit securely at No. 5 by impressions, with over 788 million, despite fewer ad airings than any other program in this week’s top 25.
• News stays front-and-center, with nearly half of our weekly rankings occupied by news-related programs (led by Good Morning America at No. 3).
• With both the men’s and women’s tournaments in later rounds, SportsCenter also received a boost by airing highlights from all of the action, as ESPN’s flagship show increased week-over-week impressions by 38%.
• After The Bachelor’s latest season wrapped up, American Idol came for the reality TV crown, landing at No. 13 by impressions this week (up from No. 22 the previous week).

CBS stays entrenched at No. 1 in our ad-impressions-by-network ranking for March 21-27, with nearly 21% of TV ad impressions.

Additional insights around the top networks by impressions from the week:

• TBS rises week-over-week as the network climbs to No. 6 by impressions due primarily to NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament games.
• ESPN2 impressions jump by over 19% week-over-week due in part to the network’s emphasis on NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament games.
• Spring training powered MLB Network impression increases as well, up almost 24% compared to the previous week’s totals.

TBS will examine the cultural impact of the 50-year old Title IX federal law in a new documentary airing April 2. 

The documentary, Title IX: 37 Words That Changed America, will chronicle and celebrate the societal and cultural impact of the legislation that paved the way for women’s college athletics – and in particular women’s college basketball – to grow and prosper, said network officials.

The one-hour show, produced by Turner Sports in conjunction with Scout Productions and Baby Hair Productions, will showcase the impact of Title IX through the perspective of WNBA icon Candace Parker, and will also feature interviews with such sports celebrities as Billie Jean King, Peyton Manning and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. The sports documentary also explores the evolution of our country in the years since Title IX was enacted and the impact of ensuring equal opportunity in sports for everyone, said Turner Sports.

“In the 50 years since its enactment, Title IX created opportunities for me and for millions of others, with the impact felt way beyond the court or the playing field,” said Parker, who also serves as executive producer of the project. “I am proud to be able to share that story through this film, and to continue the discussion about how we collectively can further break barriers for future generations.”

Following the documentary, TBS will air a special edition of sports documentary franchise The Arena that will further explore the impact of Title IX on sports and society, featuring commentary from Parker, Dr, Kiki Barnes, Tyrann Mathiew and Master P, said the network.

Also: Syndication Ratings: March Madness Dunks on Syndies

March Madness took its annual toll on syndication, and in particular shows cleared on tourney host CBS affiliates, in the week ended March 20 as the opening round of the annual NCAA basketball tournament swept over numerous time periods March 17 and 18.

Programs on all network stations also were blacked out on March 16 for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Congress. 

All of the top three games played to smaller crowds. Debmar-Mercury’s Family Feud finished first, despite falling 5% to a 5.2 live plus same day national household rating, according to Nielsen, to lead all of syndication after running second to CBS Media Ventures’ Jeopardy! in the prior three weeks. That marks the Steve Harvey-hosted game show’s lowest household rating since Dec. 26, 2021. 

Jeopardy! tumbled 14% to a 5.0, its biggest ratings turkey since the Thanksgiving holiday week ended Nov. 28, 2021. CBS’ Wheel of Fortune also went off the rails, retreating 15% to a 4.5. 

Also: Bellamie Blackstone Named Executive Producer of 'Wheel of Fortune'

Fox’s You Bet Your Life with host Jay Leno and Fox’s 25 Words or Less, starring and executive produced by Meredith Vieira, remained at a 0.8 and a 0.7, respectively. Entertainment Studios’ Funny You Should Ask advanced 33% to a 0.4.

Disney’s internet video show RightThisMinute remained at a 0.6 for a seventh straight week.

The top two magazines moved lower with CBS’ Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight each easing 9% to a 2.1 and a 2.0, respectively.

The next five magazines all were able to shrug off preemptions to preserve their prior week’s ratings with NBCU’s Access Hollywood, Fox’s TMZ, Warner Bros,’ Extra, CBS’ DailyMailTV and Fox’s Dish Nation at a 0.8, 0.7, 0.6, 0.5 and 0.2, respectively. 

In daytime, Disney’s Live with Kelly and Ryan receded 6% to a 1.6, due primarily to massive preemptions for Zelensky’s speech on March 16, but still managed to widen its talk lead, finishing first for the second straight week. Live has now been number one 32 times in the past 45 weeks, including nine ties with CBS’ Dr. Phil. Live also led among women 25-54 at a 0.6. 

Dr. Phil was plastered by preemptions, losing its primary run in all of the top-five markets on multiple days and dropping 13% to a new season-low 1.4.

NBCU’s Kelly Clarkson completed the top three, holding steady at a 0.8 and was one of only two talkers in the top ten to retain 100% of its year-ago rating. The other was CBS’ sophomore Drew Barrymore, which was steady at a 0.5. Warner Bros.’ Ellen DeGeneres declined 11% to a 0.8, tying Clarkson. 

CBS’ Rachael Ray, Debmar-Mercury’s Wendy Williams with guest hosts Fat Joe and Remy Ma, and NBCU’s conflict talker Maury all were on par with the prior week’s 0.7.

Disney’s Tamron Hall, facing preemptions, gave back 14% to a 0.6 to tie NBCU’s Steve Wilkos, which stayed put for a fourth consecutive week.

Following Drew Barrymore, Debmar-Mercury’s canceled newcomer Nick Cannon carved out a 0.4 for the fifth straight week, tying Sony Pictures Television’s canceled rookie The Good Dish, which was flat for a fourth straight week.

NBCU’s out-of-production Jerry Springer stalled at a 0.3 for the fifth time in six weeks, tying Warner Bros.’ The Real, which was relegated to a 0.3 for the tenth consecutive week. CBS’ The Doctors stayed at a 0.2 for the 54th week in a row.

Repeats of CBS’ Judge Judy, which was heavily preempted by basketball, still managed to conquer the courts despite pulling back 9% to a new season-low 4.1. 

CBS’ Hot Bench slipped 6% to a 1.5. Warner Bros.’ People’s Court leveled off at a 0.8. Warner Bros.’ Judge Mathis sagged 17% to a new series-low 0.5. Fox’s Divorce Court dropped 20% to a 0.4, matching its series low and tying NBCU’s canceled Judge Jerry, which will go off the air after this season, and Wrigley Media’s newcomer Relative Justice, which rebounded 33% and is expected to return for a second season.

Warner Bros.’ The Big Bang Theory fell 5% to remain the off-net sitcom leader at a 2.0. Disney’s Last Man Standing, Warner Bros.’ rookie Young Sheldon, Disney’s Family Guy, Sony’s The Goldbergs and Warner Bros.’ Two and a Half Men maintained a 1.3, 0.9, 0.8, 0.8 and a 0.8, respectively. Sony’s Seinfeld surged 17% to a 0.7, tying Disney’s Modern Family, which fell back 13%. Warner Bros.’ Mike & Molly and Mom and Disney’s Black-ish all were in line with the prior week at a 0.5. ■

This weekend’s lineup of live sports programming starts on the basketball court as both the men’s and women’s March Madness NCAA college basketball tournaments enter the final rounds. 

On Saturday, the men’s Elite Eight round of the tournament begins with TBS’ coverage of the Houston-Villanova and Arkansas-Duke contests. CBS’s Elite Eight round coverage on Sunday will feature the winners from Friday night’s St. Peter’s-Purdue, Providence-Kansas, North Carolina-UCLA and Iowa State-Miami games. 

On the women’s side, ESPN Saturday will televise the final games of the tournament’s Sweet 16 round, including the Notre Dame-N.C. State and Indiana-UConn games, while ESPN2 airs the Tennessee-Louisville and South Dakota-Michigan contests. On Sunday ESPN will air the first two women’s Elite Eight matchups. 

On the ice, ABC on Saturday will televise the Chicago Blackhawks-Vegas Golden Knights hockey match. TNT on Sunday will air the Tampa Bay Lightning-N.Y. Islanders matchup. Also on Sunday, ESPN will air regional finals coverage from the NCAA Men’s college hockey tournament.

CBS will offer weekend live coverage of the Professional Bullriders starting Saturday with the Bucking Battle Lucas Oil Invitational and Sunday featuring the Bucking Battle Kubota Invitational event.  

Fox on Sunday will televise the NASCAR Cup EchoPark Automotive Texas Grand Prix race. On the links, Golf Channel and NBC will offer weekend match play coverage of the PGA’s WGC Dell Technologies tournament. 

In the ring, Showtime on Saturday will televise a live fight card featuring as its main event the Tim Tszyu-Terrell Gausha junior middleweight fight. On ESPN, lightweights Miguel Berchelt and Jermiah Nakathila will battle in the telecast’s main event bout, On DAZN, Kiko Martinez will defend his featherweight title against Josh Warrington.  

Also on Saturday, ESPN will step into the octagon to televise heavyweights Curtis Blaydes and Chris Daukaus battle in the UFC Fight Night main event bout. 

Below is a snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of March 14-20, showcasing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and network and show TV ad impressions insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 19 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

With both the Men’s and Women’s NCAA Tournaments in full swing, basketball has audiences fixated on TV. From March 14-20, the men’s tournament tallied 9.21% of total TV minutes watched — No. 1 for the week, and 9x more than No. 2 show, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

CBS remains atop our ranking of the most-watched networks, with 9.79% of minutes watched from March 14-20. That’s up from 6.87% the previous week, in part powered by the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

More insights around the most-watched networks from March 14-20:

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

Men’s college basketball delivered 13.68 billion TV ad impressions from March 14-20 — 23.1% of all impressions on TV for the week, which is No. 1 among all programming, by far.

More data about the top programs by TV ad impressions during the week:

CBS remains No. 1 in our ad-impressions-by-network ranking from March 14-20, with over 22.3% of TV ad impressions — more than double the total for the No. 2 network, ABC.

Additional insights around the top networks by impressions from the week:

Fox News remained cable's most watched network in primetime last week despite a charge from several networks airing March Madness basketball tournament games, according to Nielsen.

Fox News drew 2.5 million viewers for the week of March 14 to March 20 to remain in first place in primetime for the ninth consecutive week, according to Nielsen. TBS (1.8 million viewers), TNT (1.5 million) and truTV (1.1 million) – all of which aired early round coverage of the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament – finished second, third and fourth, respectively.

HGTV, MSNBC and CNN all tied for fifth with 1 million viewers, followed by INSP (891,000 viewers), TLC (863,000) and Food Network (821,000).

On a 24-hour basis, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC continued to dominate the top three spots with continued breaking news coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. TBS and TNT rounded out the top five in the category, according to Nielsen. ■

The 2022 March Madness NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments will be in full swing this weekend and dominate the lineup of live TV sports events.

The men’s tournament will begin its second round with 16 games over two days airing on CBS, TNT and TBS to determine which teams go into the tournament’s Sweet 16 round next week. Already the tournament has featured several upsets, including St. Peter’s overtime win over second-ranked Kentucky in the Eastern regionals Thursday night. 

The women’s college basketball tournament kicks off Saturday with 64 teams competing for the top prize. ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPNews will feature live coverage of the tournament’s first round action. 

In other sports, NBC and The Golf Channel will offer weekend final round coverage of the PGA Valspar Championship golf tournament. NBC will also feature Six Nations rugby coverage Saturday featuring the Ireland-Scotland game, while USA Network will televise live Premier League soccer games on Saturday and Sunday. 

On Sunday, TNT will televise the New York Islanders-Philadelphia Flyers National Hockey League contest. On the racetrack, Fox will televise the Sunday afternoon NASCAR Cup Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 race, NBC will air the IndyCar XPEL 375 race and ESPN will offer coverage of the Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix race. ■ 

Below is a snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Mar. 7-13, showcasing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and network and show TV ad impressions insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 19 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Conference championship games powered men’s college basketball to a watch-time win in the final week before the NCAA Tournament. From March 7-13, games scored 3.77% of total TV minutes watched — No. 1 for the week, and significantly higher than the sport’s 2.12% watch-time from the previous week.

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• Combined, the 2022 Players Championship and Live From The Players coverage accounts for 1.51% of minutes watched on the week (more than every program but men’s college basketball).

• With basketball highlights galore, SportsCenter watch-time also leaps — from No. 15 to No. 8 week-over-week.

ª Diners, Drive-ins and Dives pulls in at No. 19 by minutes watched, up from No. 29 the previous week.

• Castle climbs week over week, from No. 41 to No. 25.

CBS rides men’s college basketball games and the NCAA Tournament Selection Show (among other programs) to No. 1, with 6.87% of minutes watched from Mar. 7-13. That’s up two places from the previous week, when CBS collected 6.31% of watch-time.

More insights around the most-watched networks from Mar. 7-13:

• Lifetime is new to our ranking this week, progressing from No. 26 to No. 24 by minutes watched week-over-week.

• While cable news viewership remains high, all three of the big networks see modest week-over-week ranking declines (Fox News from No. 1 to No. 4, CNN from No. 6 to No. 7, and MSNBC from No. 9 to No. 12).

• TV Land climbs from No. 23 to No. 20 on the back of syndicated sitcoms like Everybody Loves Raymond, Two and a Half Men and The King of Queens.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

Even before brackets are filled out, men’s college basketball has been delivering billions of TV ad impressions. From March 7-13, games accounted for over 3.4 billion impressions — 6.6% of the total, and No. 1 overall among all programming.

More data about the top programs by TV ad impressions during the week:

• With new episodes on both Monday and Tuesday night, The Bachelor gave ABC and its advertisers a rose with over 605 million impressions.

• News programs remain a fixture for impressions, making up more than half of the top 25 shows by impressions (led by Good Morning America at No. 3).

• American Idol’s latest season remains a fixture in our rankings, sitting at No. 18 this week.

• SportsCenter TV ad impressions jump week-over-week, peaking on Selection Sunday, which as a single day accounted for nearly 28% of the program’s impressions for the time frame.

CBS is No. 1 in our ad-impressions-by-network ranking from Mar. 7-13, with 14.8% of TV ad impressions due in part to men’s college basketball action and, of course, the NCAA Tournament selection show.

Additional insights around the top networks by impressions from the week:

• With the ongoing war in Ukraine, cable news continues to deliver, as Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC combine for more than 22.5% of the week’s TV ad impressions.

• Sports-focused networks retain their own popularity as ESPN, Fox Sports 1, ESPN2, Big Ten Network and Golf Channel all appear in this week’s rankings (along with numerous other networks that also air live sports as part of their programming).

• Speaking of: TNT is No. 12 by impressions, predominantly on the back of live NBA and NHL games, which accounted for over 85% of impressions for the network on the week.

• TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days delivered over 49% of the network’s impressions for Mar. 7-13, with about 3x the number of impressions of TLC’s No. 2 show, Dr. Pimple Popper.

DirecTV is back at it in the virtual MVPD race, making a promotional push, tied to the NCAA's "March Madness" basketball tournament, trying to gain ground for DirecTV Stream. 

In addition to offering a five-day free trial -- which would get you at least through the "Round of 64," which starts Thursday -- DirecTV is discounting the first three months of service by $10 a month, to $59.99 for the base "Entertainment" tier. 

All four four of the DirecTV Stream tiers, which top out at $139.99 a month (with $10 off promotion) for the 140-plus-channel "Premier" bundle, include CBS, CBS Sports, TNT, TBS and trueTV. Those are the channels that carry NCAA Men's College Basketball Tournament games. Here's DirecTV's landing page for the service. 

In addition to seeing aggressive online-only marketing promotions, Next TV received a DirecTV Stream mailer Tuesday in the U.S. Post -- it's the first time we can remember seeing a DirecTV-branded streaming service promoted this way in quite a while. 

Also read: NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament 2022 - Where and How to Stream March Madness

Certainly, it's been a long, winding, promotionally fueled road for vMVPD services carrying the DirecTV brand. AT&T started down the path in November 2016, shortly after its ill-fated $49 billion purchase of DirecTV, launching a $35-a-month skinny-bundled live-streaming service DirecTV Now, infiltrating a market previously pioneered by satellite TV rival Dish Network and its Sling TV offering, along with Sony's now-defunct PlayStation Vue. 

Fueled by aggressive promotions, many of them tied to AT&T's unlimited wireless products and some of them offering vMVPD service for now-unheard-of first-three-months-free price breaks, DirecTV grew like a weed, expanding to an industry-leading 1.8 million subscribers by August 2018. 

It was right around then that AT&T, shifting its eyes to the shiny bauble of its subsequently more disastrous $85 billion Time Warner Inc. purchase, cut DirecTV Now off of its promotional sauce, souring on the fast-declining DirecTV brand in the process, and rechristening the vMVPD enterprise as "AT&T Now." 

Then things got even more corporately convoluted, with AT&T shifting its pay TV focus to a kind of hybrid product, AT&T TV, which would combine virtual, IP-based distribution of video with the traditional contracts, fees and unwanted features consumers loathed. 

AT&T Now had whittled to just 656,000 subscribers by the end of 2020, just before AT&T announced plans to spin off its entire pay TV portfolio in a joint venture with private equity company TPG, a JV the telecom would own on a 70% basis. 

The newly configured DirecTV now distributes one IP-based service, DirecTV Stream, which adds taxes to its listed monthly price, but has seemingly dispensed with regional network fees and other surcharges. (Note that we're assuming this is true -- we haven't actually test-driven the service for a few years.)

Notably, DirecTV Stream still offers a proprietary Android TV-based set-top on a $5-a-month lease, but leasing this device appears optional. 

AT&T last publicly reported a combined subscriber count for DirecTV satellite TV, DirecTV streaming and legacy U-verse TV platforms at the end of Q2 of 2021, so it's unclear as to how many subscribers its virtual pay TV platforms have at this point. 

With market leaders YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV also offering all the networks anyone would need to watch March Madness -- and much closer to critical-mass scale at nearly 4 million users each (estimated in the case of YouTube TV) -- it's unclear as to whether the vMVPD market is too saturated at this point for DirecTV to re-establish a niche.

March Madness is upon us, with the “First Four” play-in games in Dayton March 15, those airing on TruTV, and the NCAA championship itself tipping off March 17, starting at 12 p.m. ET on CBS. Games are on CBS and Turner networks, including TNT, TBS and TruTV. 

On March 17, it’s Michigan versus Colorado State on CBS at 12:15, with Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel and Jamie Erdahl calling the game. At 12:40 that day, South Dakota State plays Providence on TruTV, with Brad Nessler, Brendan Haywood and Evan Washburn calling it. 

Sweet 16 games are on CBS and TBS. For the Elite Eight, the March 26 games are on TBS and the March 27 games are on CBS. 

Also: March Madness Sold Out With Record Ad Revenue for CBS, Turner

The semifinals happen April 2 and the final is on for April 4. Those games take place in New Orleans, and air on TBS. 

The top seeds are Gonzaga in the West, Baylor in the East, Arizona in the South and Kansas in the Midwest. 

NCAA March Madness Live is the dedicated streaming home for all games. Games on CBS can be streamed with a Paramount Plus premium subscription.

It is the 40th year that CBS has had March Madness, and CBS teamed up with the Turner networks in 2010 to air the tournament. “It’s impossible to find better partners than Turner has been for us,” said Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports, at a press event. 

All of last year’s games were in Indiana, the NCAA looking to limit travel amidst COVID, with the final in Indianapolis. Baylor defeated Gonzaga in the championship game. Audiences were limited due to the pandemic. 

The 2020 tournament was canceled altogether. 

McManus mentioned America’s desire to “get back to some degree of normalcy” in terms of watching college basketball games around the country in March. “I think the ratings are going to be really good,” he added. “I think the country really is waiting to watch this tournament.”

Ad revenue for this year’s affair is a record, according to CBS and Turner. “We have had one hell of a selling season,” said John Bogusz, executive VP for ad sales at CBS Sports. “As a matter of fact, we’ve written more ad revenue in this tournament than we ever had before.” 

A virtual shot clock was introduced last year, and will be back. For the first time, there will be in-game coach interviews, McManus said, which will be “fun and informative.” CBS has a new graphics package. 

“There are plenty of bells and whistles,” said McManus. 

Lenny Daniels, Turner Sports president, spoke of “bringing the fan closer” to the action. 

“The guiding principle is, the fan comes first,” he said. ■ 

March Madness has slam-dunked the ad market.

CBS Sports and Turner, which carry the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, said their commercial inventory is sold out on TV and on digital platforms, generating record revenue for the event.

Prices were up double digits, with 30-second spots on early games costing a couple of hundred thousand dollars and commercials in the final game going for more than $2 million. Two years ago, the tournament generated nearly $1 billion in ad revenue, according to Kantar.

“We have had one hell of a selling season,” said John Bogusz, executive VP for ad sales at CBS Sports. “As a matter of fact, we’ve written more ad revenue in this tournament than we ever had before.”

“This is the earliest we’ve actually sold the tournament out,” added Jon Diament, executive VP and chief revenue officer for Turner Sports.

Diament noted that the sports market remains strong and that Turner and CBS were able to sell out the tournament without selling ads to sports books and other gambling outfits, which have been pouring money into television as betting becomes legalized. The NCAA bars gambling ads during its events.

There are about 20 major sponsors for March Madness, all returning from last year. Those big advertisers represent about 60% of the revenue the tournament generates. Also returning is AT&T, which sponsors the halftime show during games.

Big spending categories for the tournament include auto companies, insurance companies and fast food chains. Diament also noted that movie studios are back after the pandemic, as are travel advertisers.

Some advertisers will be running commercials 1 minute or so long. Others will be incorporating talent from Turner into ads specially made to appear during games.

Bogusz said he expects ratings to be strong for this year’s March Madness because the Blue Blood schools — Duke, Kansas, Kentucky — will be playing this year and they are proven audience draws. The field is also likely to be well-distributed geographically with strong teams in the West and southwestern areas of the country. 

“It’s also nice to have a story,” Bogusz added. "This is Coach K’s last year. If Duke advances that’s going to be a really good story and help draw big ratings.” ■

The lineup of TV sports events for the first weekend of March starts on the college basketball court as several conference tournaments kick off leading up to the March Madness tournament.

Tournaments from conferences such as the Big South, Sun Belt, Southern Conference, Big South, Missouri Valley, CAA, Atlantic Sun, Northeast, Missouri Valley, Summit League, Ohio Valley, Patriot League and West Coast will take place on Saturday and Sunday to determine which teams will qualify for automatic bids to the Big Dance.

Saturday games featuring top-ranked teams in action on TV include third-ranked Baylor-Iowa State (ESPN2), fourth-ranked Duke-North Carolina (ESPN), fifth-ranked Auburn-South Carolina (SEC Network), sixth-ranked Kansas-Texas (ESPN) seventh-ranked Kentucky-Florida (CBS), and eight-ranked Purdue-Indiana (ESPN). On Sunday, tenth-ranked Wisconsin battles Nebraska on the Big Ten Network.  

On Sunday, several conference finals in women’s college basketball will take place, including the ACC final (ESPN), the Atlantic 10, Big Ten and SEC finals (ESPN2).

On the NBA front, ABC on Saturday will air a primetime matchup between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers. On Sunday afternoon, the network will air an NBA doubleheader lineup featuring the Brooklyn Nets against the Boston Celtics, and the Phoenix Suns battling the Milwaukee Bucks. Two more NBA games will air on ESPN Sunday night, including the Toronto Raptors-Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks-LA. Clippers.

ABC will also air a Saturday afternoon Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers NHL telecast, while on Sunday TNT will air the afternoon Dallas Stars-Minnesota Wild contest.

On the links, NBC and the Golf Channel will offer final round weekend coverage of the PGA Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament, while FS1 will take to the lanes to televise the Pro Bowlers Association's Roth/Holman Doubles tournament. 

NBC and USA Network will offer weekend coverage of the Paralympics from China.

On the soccer field, NBC on Saturday will air the West Ham-Liverpool Premier League contest, while USA Network on Saturday and Sunday will offer live Premier League doubleheader action. On Sunday, ESPN and FS1 will air live MLS games.  

FS1 on Saturday will air the Xfinity Alsco Uniforms 300 at Las Vegas auto race.

In the octagon, ESPN PPV will distribute the UFC 272 fight card featuring a main event bout between welterweights Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal. 

AT&T reported higher earnings, adding HBO and HBO Max subscribers.

HBO Max and HBO added 2.7 million domestic subs in the January-March quarter, raising the total to 44.2 million domestically, up from 41.5 million at year's end. HBO Max and HBO subscribers are up 11 million from a year ago. Movie titles such as Zack Snyder's Justice League helped maintain momentum set in late 2020 with the day-and-date launch of Wonder Woman 1984.

Global HBO Max and HBO subscribers rose to 64 million.

Also Read: Ad-Supported HBO Max to Launch in June

The company said direct to consumer subscription revenues were up about 35%. Domestic average revenue per HBO Max and HBO unit was $11.72.

Operating income for AT&T’s WarnerMedia was $2 billion, down 2%. 

WarnerMedia revenue was up 9.8% to $8.5 billion. Advertising revenue was up 18.5% to $1.8 billion, thanks mainly to the return of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Subscription revenue was up 12.6% to $3.8 billion.

AT&T is in the process of spinning off its pay TV business. The company said it lost 620,000 subscribers in the quarter and now has a total of 15,885 of what it calls premium TV connections. That’s down 14.6% from a year ago.

Also Read: Cord Cutting’s Worst Year Ever: Analyst

Video operating income rose 13.2% to $901 million, despite a drop of 9.2% in revenue to $6.725 billion. Operating expenses were down 11.9% to $5.824 billion.

AT&T’s consolidated first-quarter net income was $7.5 billion, or $1.04 a share, up from $4.6 billion, or 63 cents a share, a year ago.

Also Read: HBO Max Needs Subscriber Bump to Make Movie Strategy Work 

Revenue rose 2.7% to $43.9 billion.

For 2021, AT&T said it expects revenue growth of 1% and adjusted earning per share to be stable compared to 2020. 

“We continued to excel in growing customer relationships in our market focus areas of mobility, fiber and HBO Max,” said CEO John Stankey. “We had another strong quarter of postpaid phone net adds, higher gross adds, lower churn and good growth in Mobility EBITDA. We also continue to increase penetration in markets where we offer fiber broadband and we’re moving quickly to deploy more fiber. HBO Max continued to deliver strong subscriber and revenue growth in advance of our international and AVOD launches planned for June.” 

This headline was updated and corrected to reflect that the number includes both HBO and HBO Max subscribers.

This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of April 5-11, revealing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 17 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

The 2021 Masters Tournament took first place, capturing 2.70% of all minutes watched, while the NCAA men’s basketball tournament was in second place (0.94%). MLB baseball and NBA basketball both made the top 10 for watch-time, with 0.89% and 0.79%, respectively. Ranking newcomers for the week included Gunsmoke, which was at No. 19 (0.45% of all minutes watched) and The Price Is Right (No. 22, 0.42%). American Idol remained at No. 25, with a slight increase in watch-time from the previous week (0.40% vs. 0.39%).

Also Read: Just How Much of a Slam Dunk Has March Madness Been on Live TV?

CBS continued to reign supreme on the network ranking, snagging 9% of watch-time, up from 7.51% the previous week, thanks in part to the 2021 Masters Tournament and the NCAA basketball tournament. The Masters also helped boost ESPN and Golf Channel up in the chart: ESPN took sixth place with 2.58% of all minutes watched, while Golf Channel was No. 25 (1.02%). TBS, which had been benefiting from March Madness games over the last few weeks, dropped to No. 14 from ninth place; MSNBC also slipped in the rankings, down to No. 16 from No. 10 the week before.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

Once again, college basketball was No. 1 for TV ad impressions, 930.7 million, a 74.82% week-over-week decrease as March Madness and the NCAA tournament came to a close. NBA basketball took third place with 729.3 million impressions, a 55% increase from the previous week. The 2021 Masters Tournament and Live From the Masters were neck and neck with 636.1 million impressions vs. 625 million, respectively, and MLB baseball made the top 10 with 622 million impressions, a slight 5.6% week-over-week increase.

CBS maintained its first-place position, although its 7.9 billion TV ad impressions constituted a minor week-over-week decrease. Both ABC and NBC had slight upticks in impressions from the week before, generating 5.6 billion and 4.9 billion, respectively, compared to 5.4 billion and 4.7 billion. Golf Channel jumped into 10th place from No. 17, with its 629.8 million impressions fueled almost entirely by Live From the Masters. MLB Network and Fox Sports 1 were close behind, each generating over 621 million TV ad impressions. Headline News took No. 19 with 369.1 million impressions, driven largely by The Death of George Floyd: Derek Chauvin on Trial.

The marquee matchup between Gonzaga and Baylor provided a fitting end to an exciting March Madness tournament. As the two teams strived to create history (Gonzaga chasing a 32-0 perfect season and Baylor looking for the elusive national championship crown), TV networks and online sports books were creating milestones of their own.

After a break year, March Madness, the 68-team NCAA Division I Men’s College Basketball Tournament, is back with a bang. TV ratings during the early rounds of this year's tournament saw historical jumps compared to the 2019 season. Viewership for the regional semifinals was up 12% compared to the Sweet 16 round in 2019. The 2021 regional semifinals averaged 12.9 million viewers across TBS and CBS delivering the best Sweet 16 viewership since 1993, while TBS and truTV accounted for a gross viewership of 7.6 million viewers during the first four rounds, the highest recorded viewership for the tournament’s early stages ever.

And, while critics may point at double-digit declines during the Elite 8 games held during the work week, the resurgence in sports viewership among U.S. audiences should be putting a smile on the face of advertisers looking to use live sports as part of their media plans this year.

The tournament might be over, but it has left some learnings for marketers in its wake as we head into a new action-packed sports season. Here are some of the key takeaways for marketers from this year’s tournament. 

47M Americans Placed Their Bets

The American Gaming Association (AGA) predicted that more than 47 million, or 18%, Americans planned to wager on the NCAA tournament this year, with a 206% increase in the number of people looking to place the bet online. 

The dramatic growth in sport betting popularity could be attributed to the expansion of the legal market, as 73.6 million more Americans in 14 new legal jurisdictions could safely place bets on March Madness this year compared to the 2019 tournament. A 180% increase in online activity across betting domains in North Carolina (where betting was legalized March 18) compared to the 2019 season was a clear testament to this as well. 

A higher interest in online betting has further translated into increased activity around college basketball content online, with audiences across all age groups reviewing stats from the historical college basketball season. Young sports enthusiasts (18-to-34-year-olds) were 1.63 times more likely to conduct thorough online research before making a wager. The betting audiences with bigger bankrolls were also comparatively more likely to follow college basketball this year than before.

Americans aged 25-44 with a household income greater than $75k per year displayed a higher propensity (1.68 times the average) to place a bet online. A majority of these wagers were made over mobile platforms with an average user accounting for 17 sessions on gambling domains in March, a 54% month-over-month increase.

Cross-Platform Viewership Is Growing

The elevated interest in college basketball isn’t just about gambling. Ardent sports followers are also tuning in now more than ever just to catch the action live. TBS and TruTV accounted for a gross viewership of 7.6m viewers during the first four stages of the tournament, the highest recorded viewership for the stage of this tournament ever. CBS and Turner sports also reported record viewership numbers for the Sweet 16 stage, pulling in 12.9m viewers on an average (a 12% lift compared to 2019) indicating elevated levels of interest among college basketball followers.

While the scheduling of Elite 8 games on weekdays meant a smaller section of the fans were able to tune in to the live telecast of these games, increased demand (+18% week-over-week) for short match highlight reels on YouTube and online game summaries (+13% week-over-week) meant that audiences were finding new ways to stay in touch with the game even on workdays.

The top 20% of March Madness viewers consumed an average of 23-24 games through the tournament, consuming over 20 hours of live March Madness programming with a median sitting time of over 23 minutes. Casual audiences (the bottom quintile) tuned in for just a single game consuming just over 20 minutes of March Madness action. In terms of commercials viewed, the average ardent follower (in the top quintile) consumed close to 500 TV commercials during March Madness programming on average.

Linear TV continued to account for the bulk of March Madness viewership, with over 8 in 10 households engaging through traditional channels. But OTT and streaming audiences for sports programming has grown significantly - and continues to grow. Not only are more people tuning in through OTT, but OTT audiences are more engaged than traditional audiences when watching the game.

Increase in Second-Screen Opportunities

While more people are tuning in, their attention is more divided than ever. We observed a significant increase in cross-screen opportunities among March Madness audiences. Almost a quarter of March Madness viewers who tuned into the live telecast or stream were also found to be active on an alternate device. 40% of impressions generated on second screens were on the phone while almost half of second-screen opportunities were on desktops.

On average, three impression opportunities were generated on second screens during games. The most active online audiences (the top 10%) could be reached by up to 15 digital impressions per game. News, travel, and food and drinks domains were popular content categories among March Madness viewers during the game, while more people logged in for sports content post-game than before or during. Online activity was elevated on games scheduled on workdays indicating a lot of audiences tuned in to the game as they worked.

Phone usage during the game was higher among people aged 25-44 with higher relative household incomes, while older audiences were the least likely to be on another device. Those tuning in on weekdays seemed as if they were working while watching — the laptop/desktop activity was 11% higher as a percentage of all second-screen activity among households tuning in during the Elite 8 compared to the Sweet 16 and Final Four rounds. 

More Online Food Orders 

Continuing a trend from the Super Bowl, 21% more Americans looked to order food online during the tournament this year compared to the 2019 tournament. The apprehension around mobility and gathering in crowds continues to be a big driver for the elevated interest. Mid-income ($50K- $100K) millennial audiences (25-44) without any kids displayed a higher proclivity towards ordering in on game days. Activity across online gaming platforms during the tourney also saw a considerable increase (+26%) this year compared to 2019.

Social Engagement Up

General interest around college basketball on YouTube has also grown considerably this year, with more audiences interacting with game highlights and tutorials on “how to set up the perfect March Madness brackets.” Apart from increased engagement across YouTube, we also saw a 31% lift in engagement around the official social March Madness handles compared to the 2019. Gonzaga, Florida and USC are undoubtedly the online fan favorites, followed by Baylor and Michigan.

Methdology

We used MiQ’s proprietary Advanced TV integration with LG and Vizio to track the activity of more than 3 million households that tuned in to March Madness programming this year. These household profiles were further mapped to our ad serving integrations to create digital profiles of 7.8 million distinct March Madness followers, which were then used to analyze audience behavior online.

Rebecca Rosborough is chief marketing officer at MiQ, a programmatic media partner to marketers and agencies.

Fox News dominated the primetime and total day ratings charts during the first week of April, according to Nielsen.

Fox News averaged 2.1 million viewers for the week of March 29 to April 4, easily besting fellow cable news network MSNBC and TBS -- which carried late round coverage of the men’s college basketball tournament -- both of which tied for second place with 1.6 million viewers, said Nielsen. 

ESPN, bolstered by the more than 4 million viewers who tuned into its April 4 Stanford-Arizona women’s college basketball tournament finals telecast, pulled into fourth place with 1.2 million viewers, followed by HGTV with 1.1 million watchers.

Also Read: TV By the Numbers: The March Madness Continues, MLB Pops Up

CNN fell to sixth place with 1 million viewers, followed by History (948,000 viewers), Hallmark Channel (833,000), Food Network (766,000), and TLC (755,000). 

On a total day basis, Fox News led all networks with an average of 1.1 million viewers, followed by MSNBC (1 million viewers), CNN (816,000), HGTV (649,000) and ESPN (577,000).

This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of March 29 through April 4, revealing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 17 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

Unsurprisingly, March Madness games captured the most watch-time for the week, accounting for 2.95% of all live, linear minutes. Meanwhile, MLB baseball, which just kicked off its season, took fourth place with 0.88% of minutes watched, and SportsCenter zoomed up the ranking into No. 7 from No. 22 the previous week. Other shows that had notable week-over-week rankings increases included Law & Order (0.48%, up from No. 30 to No. 17) and SpongeBob SquarePants (0.44% of minutes watched, at No. 19 from No. 26 previously).

On the network ranking, CBS was in first place once again, but saw a week-over-week decrease in the percent of minutes watched, down to 7.51% from 8.27%. NBC moved into second place (7.01%), followed by ABC (6.70%), Fox News (4.02%) and Fox (3.74%). Multiple networks moved up the ranking from the previous week including CNN, ESPN, ION, Investigation Discovery and Food Network, while HGTV, TBS, USA, TNT and Univision dropped positions from the week before.

Also Read: Just How Much of a Slam Dunk Has March Madness Been on Live TV?

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

College basketball continued its domination, racking up 3.7 billion TV ad impressions during the week. American Idol broke into the top five with 659.7 million impressions, beating MLB games, which generated 589 million impressions. The Price Is Right and The Young and the Restless were the only other non-sports or news programs to make the top 10. NBA basketball, which was in fifth place for impressions the previous week, dropped to No. 10 (470.5 million impressions); PGA Tour golf also slipped down the ranking, from No. 2 to No. 14 (427.5 million impressions).

The top of the network ranking was stable week-over-week, led by CBS (8.1 billion TV ad impressions), ABC (5.4 billion) and NBC (4.7 billion). March Madness games accounted for over 34% of the impressions on CBS, while morning news shows were top drivers of impressions for both ABC and NBC (GMA and Today, respectively). MLB Network gained steam from the previous week, rising up to No. 12 with 559.8 million impressions. On the flip side, Golf dropped from No. 12 to No. 17, generating 377.8 million impressions during the period measured. Headline News was a ranking newcomer, with 58% of its 362.2 million impressions coming from The Death of George Floyd: Derek Chauvin on Trial.

CBS was the big winner in Monday prime, with the NCAA basketball final, Baylor versus Gonzaga, putting up a husky number. CBS posted a 2.4 in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and a 15 share. In a distant second was NBC at 0.6/4. 

CBS started prime with a repeat of The Neighborhood, then Championship Central did a 1.1. The game, tipping off at 9:20 p.m. ET, scored a 3.3 from 9:30 to 11 as Baylor took the title. At its high point, close to 14 million watched. 

Last year’s March Madness tournament was cancelled due to the pandemic. Two years ago, the final, Texas Tech versus Virginia in an overtime barnburner, did a 4.4. 

NBC had The Voice at 0.7 and 0.8 across two hours, up a tick from last week’s 0.7, and Debris went up 33% to 0.4.

ABC got a 0.5/3. American Idol lost 14% for a 0.6 across two hours and led into a Good Doctor rerun. 

Fox, Telemundo and Univision all rated a 0.3/2. Fox had a 9-1-1 rerun and America’s Most Wanted at a flat 0.3. 

Telemundo had Exatlon Estados Unidos at a flat 0.3 and La Suerte De Loli down 33% to 0.2, then Buscando A Frida up 50% to 0.3.

Univision had La Rosa de Guadalupe at 0.4, Te Acuerdas De Mi down a tenth for a 0.3 and La Hija Del Embajador at a flat 0.3. 

The CW had a 0.1/1 with Superman & Lois reruns. 

The final rounds of the March Madness men's and women's college basketball tournaments and the return of Major League Baseball highlight the first full weekend of April.

The four remaining teams in the men’s college basketball tournament will face off Saturday night on CBS. Houston will face Baylor in the first matchup, with UCLA battling top-seeded Gonzaga in the second game. The winners will face each other in the finals on Monday night on CBS. 

ESPN on Sunday will televise the women’s college basketball tournament championship game pitting Arizona against Stanford.

Major League Baseball will take the field for the first weekend of its 2021 regular season with national games Saturday on MLB Network (Toronto vs. New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox vs LA Angels), as well as FS1 (Atlanta vs Philadelphia and LA Dodgers vs Colorado). On Sunday, ESPN will carry the Atlanta vs Philadelphia and Chicago White Sox vs LA Angels games, while MLB Network airs the Arizona vs San Diego contest.

On the NBA front, the LA Clippers-LA Lakers will continue their intra-city rivalry Sunday on ABC, while on the NHL ice NBC will telecast the Detroit-Tampa Bay contest. High school basketball will also be in play Sunday as CBS airs the Slam Dunk & 3-Point championship event.

Also on Sunday, NBC and the Golf Channel will team to carry the final round of the  PGA Texas Open golf tournament, while FS1 will air the finals of the Pro Bowling Association’s USBC Masters tournament. 

After the cancellation of last year’s March Madness due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s highly anticipated tournament has been delivering plenty of excitement to college basketball fans across the country — and audiences have been tuning into the games more than anything else on live TV.

Per Inscape, of all the live, linear minutes watched on Vizio smart TVs from March 18-30, 6.94% of the time was spent with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament games, putting March Madness in first place for overall watch-time during that date range. The women’s tournament captured 0.61% of minutes watched, putting it in ninth place. 

Looking at the stages of the tournament, the first-round games on March 19-20 had the highest percentage of minutes watched (14.61%) compared to the other stages, which makes sense given the high number of games that aired those two days.

Also Read: CBS’ Sean McManus on March Madness: I’m Not Worrying About Ratings Being Down

According to Inscape’s analytics, the Midwest has been tuning into March Madness at a higher rate than the coasts. Some of the top local area markets (across the country) so far have included Ft. Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, Arkansas; Little Rock-Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Des Moines-Ames, Iowa; Syracuse, NY; and Champaign-Springfield-Decatur, Illinois.

The championship game is approaching, so it’s worth looking into where the tournament audience may be found after the final buzzer. Per Inscape, shows (excluding news and sports) watched by March Madness viewers include The Price Is Right, Let’s Make a Deal, The Bold and the Beautiful, The Neighborhood, The Wall, Mecum Auto Auctions, The Misery Index, To Tell the Truth, FBI and Wheel of Fortune.

Inscape also examined viewership crossover for the March Madness audience with other sports. A few highlights:

• Viewers of all the sports were most likely to also watch football, with the NFL slightly more popular than college football.
• Of the March Madness viewers, 83% tuned into at least 10 minutes of NFL football since September, 74% have watched some college football and 42% checked out MLB baseball.
• NFL viewers were more likely to watch college football (60%) and MLB baseball (30%) than the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (28%).

On the advertising side of things, men’s March Madness games have racked up over 17.5 billion TV ad impressions as of this writing, according to iSpot.tv — which amounts to 3.4% of all TV ad impressions for the month overall. CBS scored the top impression-count (10.9 billion), followed by TBS (4.3 billion) and TNT (1.4 billion). 

Most-seen brands during the tournament, according to iSpot, include AT&T Wireless (798.3 million TV ad impressions), Samsung Mobile (546.7 million), GEICO (499.3 million), Allstate (448.2 million) and Capital One (431.7 million). 

The top March Madness ad by impressions was Samsung’s “Different,” promoting the Galaxy S21, with 299.3 million impressions. Uber Eats also scored with a March Madness-themed spot featuring Leslie Jones (209.1 million impressions), which gave a nod to last year’s canceled tournament. According to an iSpot Ace Metrix survey, 29% of viewers considered the characters (i.e., Leslie Jones, playing two versions of herself) the single best thing about the ad.

CBS won the Monday ratings battle easily thanks to March Madness basketball. CBS rated a 1.5 in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and a 10 share. In second were ABC and NBC at 0.6/4. 

CBS had Houston versus Oregon State and Baylor against Arkansas. 

ABC had two hours of American Idol at 0.7 and The Good Doctor at 0.5, both flat. 

On NBC it was two hours of The Voice at a flat 0.7, then Debris down 25% to 0.3. 

Univision tallied a 0.4/3. Vencer El Desamor got a 0.5. Te Acuerdas De Mi scored a 0.4 and La Hija Del Embajador a 0.3. All three were level with last week. 

Fox posted a 0.4/2. A 9-1-1 rerun led into America’s Most Wanted off 25% to 0.3.

Telemundo was next at 0.3/2. Exatlon Estados Unidos and La Suerte De Loli both rated a 0.3 and Buscando A Frida scored a 0.2. Exatlon gained a tenth, La Suerte stayed level and Buscando lost a tenth. 

The CW was at 0.1/0. The Bulletproof finale got a flat 0.1 and All American Stories a 0.0. 

This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Mar. 22-28, revealing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 17 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

For the second week in a row, March Madness led for watch-time, capturing 4.78% of all minutes watched during the week. PGA Tour golf swung into second place (1.16%), while the NCAA women’s basketball tournament took No. 6 (0.74%) and NBA games were right behind with 0.71% of watch-time. American Idol, which was previously not in the top 50 shows watched, broke into the ranking at No. 16 (0.46%).

CBS maintained its hold on first place for the network ranking (8.27% of minutes watched), with an assist from March Madness games, CBS This Morning and The Price Is Right. Marathons of Ridiculousness helped move MTV into the ranking, up to No. 24 from No. 27 the previous week, while Lifetime benefited from reruns of Rizzoli & Isles, taking No. 23 with 1.10% of the week’s watch-time.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

College basketball was the primary driver of impressions during the week, but its 7 billion was a 24.37% decrease from the previous week. PGA Tour golf and NBA basketball also made the top five shows by impressions, with 906.1 million and 627 million, respectively, while women’s college basketball games came in at No. 7 (568.6 million). The top non-news or sports show by impressions was American Idol (623.9 million); others included The Price Is Right (542.3 million), The Young and the Restless (510.3 million), General Hospital (386.1 million), The Voice (366.8 million), Let’s Make a Deal (328.5 million) and Days of our Lives (326.9 million).

There was no shuffling among the first eight positions of the network ranking week-over-week: CBS led the pack with 9.9 billion impressions, followed by ABC (6 billion) and NBC (4.6 billion). Not only did March Madness deliver half of the total impressions on CBS (4.5 billion), games also accounted for 94.5% of all of the impressions from new programming on TBS, and 41.3% of TNT’s impressions. History Channel had a 54.17% week-over-week increase in impressions, moving from No. 28 the previous week up to No. 17, thanks in part to the Barrett-Jackson Live Auction. Hallmark also saw an increase in impressions, up 14.8% to 310.4 million, fueled by the network’s new original movie Don't Go Breaking My Heart (183.9 million impressions) and a new episode of When Calls the Heart (110 million impressions).

The March Madness college basketball tournament highlights a crowded TV sports weekend schedule.  

The NCAA men’s college basketball tournament continues on Saturday with Sweet 16 round action. CBS will offer coverage of the Villanova vs Baylor and Oregon St-Loyola Chicago games, while TBS will telecast the Oral Roberts-Arkansas and Syracuse-Houston contests. On Sunday, CBS will air the Creighton-Gonzaga and Florida St.-Michigan games, while TBS will telecast UCLA playing Alabama and Oregon facing USC.  

The women’s college basketball tournament also continues Saturday with ABC’s third round coverage of the Iowa-UConn and Michigan-Baylor games as well as ESPN2’s Indiana-N.C. State and Arizona Texas A&M telecasts. On Sunday ABC will carry the Georgia Tech-South Carolina and Missouri St.-Stanford games, while ESPN will telecast the Oregon-Louisville and Texas-Maryland contests. 

ESPN on Sunday will also feature the finals of college basketball’s National Invitation Tournament.  

On the ice, NBC Sunday will offer an afternoon NHL game between the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals, while NBCSN airs a hockey tripleheader, led by the Nashville Predators-Chicago Blackhawks primetime telecast. 

Sunday also features  Fox’s telecast of the NASCAR Food City Dirt Race.

On the combat sports front, DAZN Saturday will distribute the Alexander Povetkin-Dillian Whyte heavyweight title fight, while ESPN Plus will distribute the UFC 260 pay-per-view event featuring the Stipe Miocic-Francis Ngannou heavyweight main event. 

The launch of the March Madness men's college basketball tournament couldn't slow down Fox News Channel's ratings fast break for the month as the news network remained undefeated on both a primetime and total day basis, according to Nielsen. 

Fox News averaged 2.2 million viewers in primetime to finish in first place for the week of March 15 to March 21, according to Nielsen. TBS and TNT’s coverage of the tournament -- which returned this year after taking a pandemic-driven hiatus in 2020 -- helped the networks finish in second and fourth place respectively during the week. 

Also Read: CBS' Sean McManus on March Madness: I'm Not Worrying about Ratings Being Down 

MSNBC finished third with 1.7 million viewers, followed by HGTV and CNN, which tied for fifth place with 1.1 million viewers. Hallmark Channel (1 million viewers), History (1 million), Discovery Channel (822,000) and USA Network (763,000) rounded out the top 10 most watched cable networks in primetime, said Nielsen.

Fox News was triumphant on a total day basis for the fifth consecutive week, outpacing MSNBC, CNN, TBS and HGTV, according to Nielsen.

CBS won the Monday ratings contest, with March Madness action pacing the net to a big win. CBS had a 1.2 in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and an 8 share. NBC was runner-up at 0.7/4. 

CBS had LSU-Michigan, then USC-Kansas. 

NBC had two hours of The Voice down 25% to 0.8 and drama Debris at a flat 0.4. 

ABC did a 0.6/4. Two hours of American Idol rated a 0.7, down a tenth from Sunday’s two hours, and The Good Doctor was also down a tenth at 0.5.

Fox and Univision both rated a 0.4/2. Fox had a 9-1-1 rerun and America’s Most Wanted at a flat 0.4. 

On Univision, Vencer El Desamor got a 0.5 and Te Acuerdas De Mi a 0.4, both up a tenth, then La Hija Del Embajador tallied a level 0.3. 

Telemundo posted a 0.3/2. Exatlon Estados Unidos lost 33% for a 0.2 and La Suerte De Loli and Buscando A Frida notched a flat 0.3 apiece. 

The CW rated a 0.1/1. Bulletproof got a flat 0.1 and led into a Black Lightning rerun. 

This is a quick snapshot of TV by the numbers for the week of Mar. 15-21, revealing the most-watched shows and networks using glass-level data from Vizio’s Inscape, and the top shows and networks by TV ad impressions with insights via iSpot.tv.

Most-Watched Shows and Networks

Via Inscape, Vizio’s TV data product with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 17 million active and opted-in smart TVs. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

March Madness captured the most watch-time during the week by far, accounting for 6.65% of all minutes, with 3.17% coming from games broadcast on CBS. Other sports-related programming that rose up the ranking included NBA basketball, PGA Tour golf and SportsCenter. Police procedurals Chicago P.D., Blue Bloods and NCIS moved up the chart, while shows that slipped week-over-week included Friends, Two and a Half Men, Home Town and The Voice. 

Also Read: NCAA March Madness Tourney Generating Record Ad Sales, Execs Say

The 2021 NCAA Basketball Tournament helped propel CBS into first place, with the network capturing 8.25% of all minutes watched during the week. March Madness also fueled a few other networks’ move up the ranking, including TBS (2.75% of watch-time), TNT (2.10%) and truTV (1.07%). Bravo got a slight bump up, taking No. 22 with 1.13% of minutes watched, thanks in part to reruns of Below Deck Mediterranean.

Top Shows and Networks by TV Ad Impressions

Via iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. Rankings are by TV ad impressions, for new episodes only. 

Thanks to March Madness, college basketball games generated an astounding 9.3 billion TV ad impressions — nearly as many as CBS had in total for new episodes (10.1 billion). It was the only programming to receive over a billion impressions for the week; Good Morning America took second place with 883.3 million, a 15.92% increase from the previous week. The Bachelor saw an 81.89% week-over-week increase in impressions, up to 567.4 million, while The Voice’s 430.6 million impressions constituted a 26.76% decrease from the previous week.

CBS had nearly twice as many TV ad impressions (10.1 billion) as the second-place network, ABC (5.2 billion), and half of those impressions came from college basketball. MSNBC saw a 59.73% increase in impressions week-over-week, up to 3.1 billion and edging out CNN (2.5 billion impressions). After a week off the ranking, TBS came back strong with 2.3 billion impressions, primarily fueled by March Madness games. TNT and truTV also benefited from the tournament, with 1.5 billion and 840 million impressions, respectively.

 The NCAA March Madness men's college basketball tournament overshadows and otherwise busy weekend of live sports programming.

First round action of the tournament continues Saturday beginning at noon and runs throughout the day across networks ESPN, CBS, tru TV, TBS and TNT. Second round coverage launches on Sunday with eight games slated throughout the day.

The Women’s college basketball tournament kicks off on Sunday with first round coverage on ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN2 and ABC.

Auto racing events will speed up this weekend with NASCAR and Xfinity races on FS1 and IMSA 12 hours of Sebring coverage on NBCSN. Fox will air the NASCAR QuikTrip500 race on Sunday. 

The Six Nations rugby tournament enters its "Super Saturday" action Saturday on NBC with the England and Ireland match. In addition, CNBC will carry the Italy-Scotland match and NBCSN will air the Wales-France game.

On the combat sports front, ESPN will offer a UFC fight card featuring a middleweight main event between Derek Brunson and Kevin Holland, while ESPN will offer a Saturday matinee boxing match between light heavyweights Artur Beterbiev and Adam Deines.  DAZN will distribute the Vergil Ortiz Jr.-Maurice Hooker welterweight fight, as well as the Lawrence Okolie-Krzysztof Glowacki cruiserweight fight.

NBC and Golf Network will air final coverage of the PGA Honda Classic Sunday.

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is inspiring March Madness among sponsors and generating record advertising revenue for CBS and Turner Sports.

“We’re virtually sold out,” said John Bogusz, executive VP, sports sales and marketing, CBS Network Sales, speaking on a call with reporters Wednesday. 

Bogusz said that for the big ticket items, all of the commercials in one of the Final Four games are already spoken for, and there are only a couple of units left in the other Final Four games and the championship game.

Also Read: CBS’s Sean McManus on March Madness: I’m Not Worrying About Ratings Being

A handful of spots are being reserved in case the trend to lower ratings seen in college basketball so far this year, as well as in the Super Bowl and the NBA All Star game also impacts the tournament, he said.

But ad sales at higher prices than last year have produced record revenue, said Jon Diament, executive VP, chief revenue officer, Turner Sports.

During the 2019 tournament, CBS and Turner Sports generated an estimated $655.1 million in ad revenue, according to Standard Media Index.

Diament said several new corporate sponsors signed up, helping to boost the revenue total. The new partner level sponsors are Aflac, Invesco and Great Clips.

Invesco and Great Clips actually signed up for last year’s tournament, which was one of the first events canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aflac is brand new this year.

The Champion-level sponsors for the tournament are AT&T, Capital One and Coca-Cola. The partner level sponsors are Aflac, Buffalo Wild Wings, Buick, GEICO, Great Clips, Invesco, Lowe’s, Marriott, Nabisco, Nissan, Pizza Hut, Reese’s, Uber Eats, Unilever, and Wendy’s.

Those are generally multi-year deals, which means the event is nearly half sold out when CBS and Turner sales people hit the street each year. Those sponsorships include integrated media, marketing rights, activations and hospitality.

The big categories driving increased spending this year are insurance, auto, telecom, financial services and restaurants.

After the pandemic, both quick service and casual dining restaurants are advertising again, Diament said.

A couple of movie studios are also advertising plus streaming services, including Paramount Plus from CBS parent company ViacomCBS, which was a big Super Bowl advertiser, and HBO Max from Turner parent AT&T.

While ratings have been challenged for linear networks, spending on sports has continued to be good, said Bogusz. Diament added that Turner has been seeing record-setting revenue for its NBA season.

During the games, viewers will see new, custom contextual ads, many featuring the networks’ sports talent; in-game branding during marquee moments and commentary, made-for-TV moments and amplified social moments.

In all, 100 different advertisers will be involved in the tournament and about 90% of the advertisers buying linear ads will also be on digital platforms including NCAA March Madness Live.  

“We’re starting to see more of a trend of folks coming in and buying their inventory earlier because they’re concerned about  getting blocked out of the prime positions,” Diament added.

One thing that will make this year’s tournament different is smaller out-of-home viewership with fewer people watching in bars and in offices. For the past few years, out-of-home viewing has been included in the audience numbers on which ad sales are based.

“We expect the Nielsen number to reflect strong viewership at home,” Diament said. “There won’t be a need for a boss button.”