NCAA Basketball Tourney Delivers For CBS

The NCAA College Basketball Tournament took over the headlines when it came to big TV viewership news on Thursday -- day and night -- especially on CBS.

In prime time, CBS’ two opening round prime-time games soared nearly 50% in overall viewership versus a year before.

CBS earned a Nielsen 1.6 rating/6 share among 18-49 viewers (5.51 million overall viewers) for its 8 p.m. game between Purdue-Cincinnati; and an 1.8/7 (5.46 million viewers) for Kentucky-Hampton at 10 p.m.

A year ago, CBS’ initial 8 p.m. game, Wofford-Michigan, grabbed 1.0/4 among 18-49 viewers and 3.79 million overall viewers; its second prime-time game in 2014, Arizona State/Texas, got to a 1.3/4 and 3.64 million viewers.

Early daytime cable network NCAA games on Turner Broadcasting networks were comparable to a year ago.

TNT’s Harvard-North Carolina scored a Nielsen 1.3 rating among 18-49 viewers (3.2 million overall viewers) at 7:24 p.m.; TNT’s Ohio State-VCU at 4:46 p.m. earned a 1.1 18-49 rating (2.9 million overall viewers); TNT’s Wofford-Arkansas at 9:46 p.m. posted a 0.9 rating (2.03 million overall viewers); and TBS’s 9:13 p.m. LSU-North Carolina State had a 0.7 rating (1.59 million overall viewers).

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A year before, Turner games posted a 1.24 rating among 18-49 viewers for its early-evening 6:43 p.m. game; then a 1.16 for its second game at 7:18 p.m; a 1.12 rating for its 10:24 p.m. game; and a 0.91 for its 4:54 p.m. contest.

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