Ratings Roundup: NBA on ABC Viewership Up 13% From 2020-21 By SVG Staff
Friday, April 8, 2022 - 10:29 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, NBA on ABC's ratings are up 13%, NFL Live has its best March audience since 2015, and more.
NBA on ABC Viewership Up vs. Last Two Seasons The 2021-22 regular season viewership for the NBA on ABC was up from the last two years, according to Nielsen. The 19-game package averaged 3,026,000 viewers, up 13 percent vs. last season and up 3 percent from the 2019-2020 campaign.
NBA Countdown delivered by Papa John's, the NBA on ABC pregame show, averaged 1,451,000 viewers, which was up 8 percent vs. last year and up 3 percent from two seasons ago.
The NBA on ABC package includes games on Christmas Day as well as the NBA Saturday Primetime on ABC presented by Meta Quest series and the ABC Sunday Showcase presented by Reese's Peanut Butter Cup series. The NBA on ABC will continue throughout the NBA Playoffs, culminating with the NBA Finals.
NFL Live Has Best March Audience Since 2015
NFL Live delivered its most-watched month of March in seven years (2015), with its monthly audience spiking during NFL Free Agency, continuing a streak of multiyear viewership highs for the show dating back to September 2021 and the start of the this past NFL regular season.
During the NFL's negotiating period and the first day of free agency (March 14-16), NFL Live averaged 462,000 viewers a show (4-5 p.m. ET), up 41% from the equivalent three days in 2021 (March 15-17). Spanning the entire month of March, NFL Live averaged 393,000 viewers per show on ESPN, its best March average since 2015, including a 42% increase over 2021, 30% from 2020 and 36% from 2019. Additional highlights:
In the key Persons 18-49 demo, NFL Live was up 47% year-over-year for the month
Monday, March 14, averaging 511,000 viewers, represented the show's most-watched episode for the month
Leading into NFL Live during the NFL's negotiating period and first day of free agency (March 14-16) were three SportsCenter Special: NFL Free Agency Countdown shows (3-4 p.m.), which averaged 362,000 viewers each episode
Kansas vs. UNC Sets NCAA Men's Championship Record
CBS Sports and Turner Sports' exclusive coverage of April 4's NCAA Division I Men's Basketball National Championship - Kansas defeating North Carolina, 72-69, with the biggest halftime comeback in championship game history - airing across TBS, TNT and truTV produced the most-viewed NCAA Men's Championship Game telecast ever on cable television. The Kansas/UNC game delivered an average of 18.1 million viewers, based on total audience delivery, an increase of 4% over last year's national championship (Baylor vs. Gonzaga).
The Kansas/UNC telecast was the third most-watched college basketball game in cable TV history, with April 2's UNC/Duke Final Four National Semifinal matchup (which averaged 18.5 million viewers) ranking second all-time.
The 2022 NCAA Men's Tournament airing across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV averaged 10.7 million total viewers and a 17.0 share (the percentage of households or viewers who are watching television at that time) for its 67 live game telecasts, both up 13% over last year. The 17.0 share is the best for the entire NCAA Men's Tournament since 1994.
NCAA March Madness Live set multiple all-time records for last night's Kansas/UNC championship, including the largest audience and most minutes consumed for a single game in MML history. Kansas/UNC netted a peak of 1.6 million concurrent streams, breaking the previous record set just two days prior during the Duke/UNC showdown. This year's NCAA Men's Tournament generated the most live uniques for any full tournament in MML history, a 12% increase over the previous record year set in 2019.
Official NCAA Men's March Madness social handles generated record engagement for this year's NCAA Men's Tournament, with a 58% increase vs. the previous all-time high, set in 2021. For last night's Championship Game, social engagements saw a 33% lift compared to the prior record.
NCAA Women's Basketball Championship Nets 4.85M Viewers
South Carolina's wire-to-wire victory in the 2022 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship scored 4.85 million viewers April 3 to become the most-watched women's title game since 2004, and the fourth largest audience to watch a women's championship game since ESPN began exclusively airing the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament in 1996.
The 4.85 million viewers tuning in across ESPN networks Sunday was the most-watched cable program of the day, an audience increase of 18 percent year-over-year and 30 percent from 2019. The matchup peaked from 10-10:15 p.m. ET with 5.91 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, as South Carolina captured its second national title during ESPN's MegaCast presentation.
ESPN's commitment to women's basketball has never been stronger and this year's viewership numbers are a clear indication of the growing popularity of the sport and the NCAA Women's Tournament, says Nick Dawson, ESPN vice president of programming and acquisitions. Since ESPN began exclusively televising this event more than two decades ago, we have consistently strived to raise the bar in our presentation, and we are particularly gratified by our expanded coverage and the introduction of new elements like the MegaCast this year. We look forward to working with the NCAA to further enhance our presentation in the years ahead.
Most-Watched Final Four in a Decade
The 2022 NCAA Women's Final Four is the most-watched Final Four weekend since
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Ratings Roundup: NBA on ABC Viewership Up 13% From 2020-21 By SVG Staff 
