The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship, in which Villanova defeated North Carolina at the final buzzer, 77-74, averaged 17.8 million total viewers and a 13.2 HH coverage rating/10.6 U.S HH rating across TBS, TNT and truTV. That is down 37% in viewership and down 34% in rating from last season's Duke/Wisconsin showdown on CBS ((16.0, 28.3 million), which drew the largest audience in 18 years. The game was the first Championship to air on TBS rather than CBS as part of the two networks combined rights deal with the NCAA (TBS is currently in about 18 percent fewer households than CBS). Viewership was down 16% and rating was down 15% percent from the 21.3 million and 12.4 rating for UConn-Kentucky in 2014. The previous low was a 10.8 rating for North Carolina-Michigan State in 2009. (AP)
Despite the declines compared to previous CBS telecasts, the game ranks as the second most-viewed college basketball telecast in the history of cable television, trailing only the 2015 National Semifinal game between Wisconsin/Kentucky (also airing across TBS, TNT and truTV). The National Championship telecast was also the highest-rated and most-viewed program of the night across all of television. Turner networks have now been home to cable television's top 14 most-viewed college basketball games of all time.
Villanova's victory over North Carolina peaked with an average of 22.3 million total viewers and a 16.5 HH coverage rating/13.2 U.S. HH rating from 11:15-11:30 p.m. ET, during the final moments of the game. Based on quarter-hour delivery, the audience grew 51% from the start of the game leading up to its epic conclusion.
Collectively, the National Championship grossed 2.5 billion minutes of consumption across television and digital platforms. NCAA March Madness Live netted 3.4 million live video streams and 1.1 million live hours of video consumption, the latter a 16% increase over last year.
Monday's National Championship also generated 56 million impressions across March Madness social accounts on Twitter and Facebook, up 112% over last year. Social video views were up more than five times the volume of last year's championship game with eight million views overall
The NCAA Women's Final Four National Final between top-seeded UConn and No. 2 seed Oregon State on Sunday delivered a 1.7 overnight rating on ESPN, up 31 percent from last year's first semifinal tilt between South Carolina and Notre Dame (1.3). The game is also up 6 percent over UConn's 2015 semifinal game (1.6), the second of the ESPN doubleheader. Combined, the two Women's Final Four National Semifinal games experienced 34 percent increase in average minute audience, 14 percent increase in total unique viewers and 30 percent increase in total minutes viewed compared to last year's semifinal games. The two National Semifinal games - which also included No. 4 seed Syracuse against No. 10 seed Washington on ESPN2 - earned a combined 1.4 overnight rating, comparable to ESPN's doubleheader in 2014. The second semifinal delivered a 1.0 rating.
On a market-by-market basis for the UConn-Oregon State game on ESPN, Hartford delivered the highest-rated market at 19.2, followed by Portland (7.0), Seattle (4.4) and Knoxville (3.0). The top metered markets for Syracuse-Washington on ESPN2 were led by Seattle (8.7), Hartford (5.8), Knoxville (2.2) and Portland (2.0).
On WatchESPN, UConn vs. Oregon State experienced a 70 percent increase in average minute audience, 32 percent increase in total unique viewers and 59 percent increase in total minutes viewed compared to the first semifinal game in 2015 (South Carolina vs. Notre Dame). The game experienced a 45 percent increase in average minute audience, 38 percent increase in total unique viewers and 59 percent increase in total minutes viewed compared to UConn's semifinal game last year
beIN SPORTS telecast of the El Cl sico matchup between LaLiga's FC Barcelona and Real Madrid on April 2 averaged more than 1.9 million total viewers (P2 ) across both networks. El Cl sico on beIN SPORTS en Espa ol ranks as the #1 soccer telecast YTD across all cable networks regardless of language outperforming telecasts such as Univision Deportes' Liga MX Super Cl sico Guadalajara vs. Am rica and the World Cup Qualifier match M xico vs. Canada ; ESPN2's World Cup Qualifier match USA vs. Guatemala ; and NBCSN's English Premier League Chelsea vs. Arsenal . The simulcast of El Cl sico on beIN SPORTS ranks as the fifth highest rated soccer telecast among competitors such as NBCSN, ESPN2 and Fox Sports and sits in the top 15 among all soccer matches YTD across all languages. The April 2nd telecast of the season's second installment of El Cl sico averaged 1,915,487 total viewers (P2 ), seeing a 2.2% increase in viewership since the previous match on November 21st, 2015, which averaged 1,874,582 total viewers (P2 ) across both networks
The broadcast of FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid had the #1 most socially engaged audience across all sporting events of the day based on tweets per unique author outperforming Villanova vs. Oklahoma and North Carolina vs. Syracuse Final Four matches on TBS, in addition to World Figure Skating Championships and Phoenix Grand Prix on NBCSN. beIN SPORTS' broadcast of FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid was the #2 most social program of the day across all categories, with the most tweeted minute of the game occurring at 4:15 pm ET with 11,000 tweets following Cristiano Ronaldo's winning goal. El Cl sico content featured across beIN SPORTS' Facebook pages generated over 29.3 million impressions combined and 3.1 million video views with 1.6 million engaged users
ESPN's Major League Baseball Opening Day was headlined by a 2.1 overnight rating for the New York Mets-Kansas C
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...
The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship, in which Villanova defeated North Carolina at the final buzzer, 77-74, averaged 17.8 million total viewers and a 13.2 HH coverage rating/10.6 U.S HH rating across TBS, TNT and truTV. That is down 37% in viewership and down 34% in rating from last season's Duke/Wisconsin showdown on CBS ((16.0, 28.3 million), which drew the largest audience in 18 years. The game was the first Championship to air on TBS rather than CBS as part of the two networks combined rights deal with the NCAA (TBS is currently in about 18 percent fewer households than CBS). Viewership was down 16% and rating was down 15% percent from the 21.3 million and 12.4 rating for UConn-Kentucky in 2014. The previous low was a 10.8 rating for North Carolina-Michigan State in 2009. (AP)
