The NCAA Tournament got off to its slowest start in five years.
First round coverage of the NCAA Tournament averaged a combined 5.2 final rating and 7.9 million viewers across CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV Thursday, down 7% in ratings and 8% in viewership from both last year and 2014 (5.6, 8.6M), and the lowest averages for opening day of the tournament since 2011 — the first year of the CBS/Turner Sports partnership (5.0, 7.4M).
Thursday’s early primetime window averaged just under 10.0 million viewers across the four networks, down 8% from last year (10.8M) and down 13% from 2014 (11.4M). Indiana/Chattanooga on CBS was the top game of the window with 4.0 million viewers, followed close behind by North Carolina/Florida Gulf Coast on TBS (3.6M).
The late primetime window had 9.6 million, down 6% from last year (10.2M) but up 11% from 2014 (8.7M). Kentucky/Stony Brook was the top draw with 3.7 million on CBS.
Combined numbers for the afternoon windows were not immediately available.
(Thu. numbers via Sports Business Daily, Programming Insider)
