• by Wayne Friedman , April 10, 2009

CBS continues to see big results from its NCAA March Madness online efforts. 

Total unique visitors climbed nearly 60% to 7.52 million for the entire month-long effort, versus 2008 results -- those who watched the basketball tournament via its Internet video player. Also, CBS said total video and audio was up 75% to 8.6 million hours.

Executives say the entire NCAA Tournament advertising online revenue grew to $30 million, a 30% increase over 2008. This pales, however, in comparison to what CBS does from its traditional video platforms. Research firms estimate that advertisers spent $643 million overall on the tournament in 2008.

Viewing results for its traditional media efforts were more modest. CBS Sports' men's basketball championship game was up 5% in viewership for its metered markets stations from 2008.

For the entire tournament on CBS, viewership averaged a 5.7 household rating/12 share and 8.9 million viewers -- up 2% from last year's all-time-low average.

National TV viewership for the final game in which North Carolina beat Michigan State didn't turn out as well. It drew a Nielsen Media Research 10.8 household rating/18 share, down 11% from last year's final game between Kansas and Memphis.

A small part of this decline may have been due to viewers who were online. For example, 515,000 total hours of video and audio were viewed during the semifinal and championship games -- a 51% increase over 2008.