• by Wayne Friedman , April 22, 2025

The NCAA "March Madness" Men’s College Basketball event was a key reason that Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery posted overall viewership gains in March, according to Nielsen.

Its "media distributor" index pushed Paramount to an 8.5% share (from 8.2% in February) on the CBS Television Network and Paramount+. WBD rose to a 6.7% (from 6.1%) for its airing of the event on TNT, TBS, truTV, and streamer Max.

A year ago Paramount Global was at a 9.0% share in March 2024, while WBD was at an 8.1% share. 

Overall, Max rose 6% month-to-month, largely driven by “The White Lotus” -- the fourth-biggest title in the month with 4.5 billion viewing minutes. New show “The Pitt” -- a top ten-viewed series -- added 2.3 billion viewing minutes.

For the second month in a row, the top media distributor was YouTube -- moving up to a leading 12% share (from 11.6%).

Walt Disney grew a half-share point to 10.5%, in second place. Nielsen says "The Oscars" had a total 20.3 million viewers across ABC and Hulu, and was also boosted by a returning “American Idol” and the regularly scheduled “ABC World News Tonight.”

Paramount Global came in a distant third with 8.5%, followed by NBCUniversal with 8.0% (down from 8.1%) and Netflix at 7.9% (down from 8.2%).

Further down the list were Amazon at 3.5% -- even with February -- and The Roku Channel at 2.2% -- up from 2.1%.

This story has been updated.