NCAA men’s basketball, reality fare help CBS win Nielsen prime-time ratings race last week

Hoops and reality shows help CBS win ratings week

NEW YORK — Competition programming reigned last week in prime time, from basketball to singing and dancing, plus other assorted reality fare.

The NCAA men’s tournament rewarded CBS with bursts of March Madness in the form of robust Nielsen ratings. Those championship games, along with such shows as “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race,” helped CBS win the week overall, the Nielsen Co. said Tuesday.

Also giving CBS a boost was its new reality hit, “Undercover Boss,” which ranked fourth for the week with 16.7 million viewers.

Fox had the week’s top-rated show, the Tuesday edition of “American Idol,” which drew 24.21 million viewers, while the season premiere of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” was only slightly behind. Wednesday’s “Idol” ranked third.

For the week, CBS averaged 11.1 million viewers (6.8 rating, 12 share), while Fox averaged 8.9 million (5.2 rating, 9 share) and ABC had 8.2 million (5.2 rating, 9 share). NBC had 6.1 million (3.9 rating, 7 share), the CW had 1.9 million (1.2 rating, 2 share), and ION Television had 970,000 (0.6 rating, 1 share).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.2 million viewers (1.6 rating, 3 share), Telemundo had 1.2 million (0.6 rating, 1 share), TeleFutura had 910,000 (0.5 rating, 1 share), and Azteca had 250,000 (0.1 rating, 0 share).

“NBC Nightly News” held its lead among the evening newscasts with an average of 8.4 million viewers (5.5 household rating, 11 share). “ABC World News” was second with 7.4 million (5.0 rating, 10 share), while the “CBS Evening News” had 5.7 million viewers (3.9 rating, 8 share). (”CBS Evening News” figures are based on a three-day average due to airings of NCAA basketball.)

A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of March 22-28, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: “American Idol” (Tuesday), Fox, 24.21 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 24.19 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 21.44 million; “Undercover Boss,” CBS, 16.72 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 14.49 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 14.46 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 13.42 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 13.04 million; “Amazing Race,” CBS, 12.73 million; “Castle,” ABC, 12.21 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.; CBS is owned by CBS Corp.; CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp.; Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp.; NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co.; ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks; TeleFutura is a division of Univision; Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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