CBS Sports is off to a good start with its coverage of March Madness, with early numbers for the NCAA men's basketball tourney some of the best in six years.
Through Saturday, CBS was averaging a preliminary national household Nielsen rating of 5.3/12 share, up 6% in rating from 2002 (5.0/12) and tying the best three-day average since a 5.4/13 in 1998. (Last year, the tourney was averaging a soft 4.5/9 at this point, when ESPN had aired some early-round games so that CBS News could cover the onset of the war in Iraq).
Saturday's early-evening action (6:06-8:07 p.m. ET), highlighted by close Syracuse-Maryland and Stanford-Alabama games, earned a prelim rating of 7.7/17, the best in this window since 1994.
CBS ran a solid second in adults 18-49 on Thursday (4.0/12) to NBC (6.7/19), edged out the Peacock on Friday in prelim results (3.6/11 to 3.5/11) and handed Fox a rare setback on Saturday (3.5/12 to 2.8/9).
Friday, meanwhile, saw a weak debut at 10 for ABC legal drama "The D.A." (prelim 2.0/6 in 18-49, 7.1 million), which was well behind both "Crossing Jordan" on NBC (3.7/11 in 18-49) and basketball on CBS (3.6/11).
Fox is also hurting on the night with drama "Wonderfalls" (prelim 1.6/5 in 18-49, 3.8m) and reality skein "Playing It Straight" (prelim 1.6/5 in 18-49, 3.8m), which combined for a fourth-place finish in their second week.
Contact Rick Kissell at
rick.kissell@variety.com