• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

NCAA's “March Madness” keeps gaining viewership, and is now up 9% through the “Elite Eight” round to a Nielsen-measured 10.3 million average viewers.

This marks the highest viewership since 1993 through the first two weeks of the event. These end-of-the-season college basketball games air on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV.

The strongest result came on Sunday with UConn's shocking last-minute victory -- beating Duke, the number one-seeded college before the tournament began in a game that averaged 13.4 million viewers.

Over the first two-week period, iSpot estimates national TV advertising spend of $1.04 billion, just topping that over a year ago ($1.0 billion).

This came from 21.7 billion impressions and 11,497 airings.

The previous year, TV ad spend came in at $1.0 billion, with 22.7 billion impressions and 11,445 airings.

Brands buying time in the show are seeing 18% higher “attention” scores than the TV industry average -- compared to a year ago, when there was a 22% higher average attention.

This comes with a low "interruption" index of 1.94%. This means viewer actions are minimal during the airing of those ads, which can include changing the channel, fast-forward through video, and pulling a program guide.

Top-spending brands through the Elite Eight round include AT&T Wireless, Capital One, Geico, and Progressive Insurance.

Top CBS promoted TV shows during the games include “Survivor,” “Marshals,” “America’s Culinary Cup,” “NCIS,” “CIA,” “Tracker,” “2026 Master Tournament,” “Boston Blue,” “FBI” and “Fire Country/Sheriff Country.”