Coverage of the NCAA tournament’s semi-final games on CBS Saturday—pitting the Final Four teams against each other for berths in the championship game—drew 16.8 million viewers on average, up 44% from a year ago.
The late game, with North Carolina beating Oregon, drew 18.8 million viewers—the second-most watched game since 1998 and up 44% from last year when the games were on cable with Turner Broadcasting.
The early game, won by Gonzaga over South Carolina, averaged 14.7 million viewers, up 46%.
North Carolina will face Gonzaga in Monday’s championship game. A year ago Villanova beat North Carolina with a buzzer-beating 3-point shot. Ratings of the game, on cable for the first time, drew 17.8 million, down 37% from the previous year’s game on CBS.
So far, CBS and Turner’s coverage of March Madness is the second-most watched in 23 years with an average viewership of 10.4 million viewers, up 14% from last year.
The tournament has also generated 93.5 million live video streams so far, the most ever.
