NCAA Final Four Shoots Big Ratings

Turner Broadcasting cable networks continues to score strong viewing marks for its coverage of the NCAA College Basketball Tournament. One of its “Final Four” games this past weekend, Kentucky-Wisconsin, averaged a Nielsen 22.6 million total viewers -- a game that ran across three Turner networks (TBS, TNT and truTV).

This was up 39% from the game of a year ago -- which also aired on the three Turner cable networks. Kentucky had come into the game with a perfect record -- winning all its season’s contests.

This year’s Kentucky-Wisconsin game earned a Nielsen 12.4 household rating versus last year’s Final Four game between Kentucky-Wisconsin, which pulled in a 9.2 household rating.

Its earlier game Duke against Michigan State -- also on TBS, TNT and truTV -- pulled in 15.3 million total viewers, up 31% from the previous year. The game averaged a 10.5 household rating for the contest versus 6.9 household ratings for the Connecticut-Florida semi-final game.

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In 2013, the featured early-evening Final Four contest (Michigan/Syracuse) on CBS earned 17.1 million viewers and a 10.2 household rating. With the earlier semifinal contest (Kansas/Ohio State) pulling in 16.6 million viewers and a 9.6 household rating.

Overall, this year’s NCAA Tournament coverage across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV is averaging a 7.5/15 overnight rating/share, tied as the best preliminary ratings in 23 years (7.7/16 in 1992).

NCAA March Madness Live has garnered more than 77 million live video streams and 16.8 million live hours of video usage through Saturday’s national semifinals -- both all-time records. This year’s live streams are up 15% over last year, with live hours of video consumed rising 17%.

1 comment about "NCAA Final Four Shoots Big Ratings".
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  1. SC Roddy from WP Carey , April 7, 2015 at 12:27 a.m.

    I'm not surprised to read that the NCAA is drawing monster ratings for the final four. From a marketing perspective this is interesting because it's further reinforcement that live sports is one of the few television programs that demands live audiences. Imagine watching tonight's national championship on DVR tomorrow -- you couldn't do it. Sports will almost always win the ratings war with prerecorded programming. This fact has become the genesis of a lot of controversy regarding paying student athletes to play. Currently, administrators are getting very rich off these college games while asking the athletes to make tremendous sacrifices. As the contracts between the NCAA, Turner, ESPN, etc. continue to increase in value, so do the costs to advertise. It's no coincidence the most vaLuable airtime of the year is during a sporting event. This also presents interesting questions about the demographics advertisers are reaching and how they can find their target audiences. Sports is definitely impacting the world of advertising and marketing because sports forces you to watch live with commercials unlike most other programming.

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