TBS scored big gains for its Sweet 16 games Thursday night, but not enough to overcome steep declines on CBS.
Thursday’s Kansas State-Michigan State NCAA men’s basketball regional semifinal averaged 5.92 million viewers on TBS, up 88% from Villanova-Michigan last year (3.15M) and the largest Sweet 16 audience on the network — excluding two years ago, when the games aired in standalone weekend windows — since 2015 (Wisconsin-North Carolina: 6.89M). (As with all multi-year highs, keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not included in viewership prior to two years ago.)
The big jump on TBS was not enough to overcome a steep drop for CBS, which averaged 4.26 million for UConn’s concurrent rout of Arkansas — down 48% from Arkansas-Gonzaga last year (8.16M). The combined audience of 10.18 million marked a 10% decline year-over-year (vs. 11.32M).
CBS led the way in the late window with 6.13 million for Gonzaga’s thrilling win over UCLA, but that was still down 25% from Duke’s narrow win over Texas Tech last year (8.23M). In the same window on TBS, Florida Atlantic’s upset of Tennessee drew 3.97 million — up 68% from Houston-Arizona a year ago (2.36M).
The combined total of 10.11 million marked a 5% decline from last year (10.59M).
While the men’s tournament opened with its most-watched first round on record, viewership has otherwise been just slightly off of last year’s pace. The tournament was averaging a combined 9.04 million viewers per window entering Thursday, per Sports Business Journal, off 1% year-over-year.
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 3.24, Programming Insider 3.24)
