The NCAA Basketball Tournament Begins

THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2016

Household Rating/Share
Fox: 5.8 rating/10 share, ABC: 5.1/ 9, CBS: 2.8/ 5, NBC: 2.5/ 4, CW: 0.7/ 1

Percent Change from the Year-Ago Evening:
Fox: – 5, ABC: – 7, CW: -36, CBS and NBC: -39 each

Ratings Breakdown:
The 2016 NCAA Basketball Tournament (aka “March Madness) began on CBS and the networks of Turner – TBS, TNT and truTV. The two featured match-ups on CBS were UT-Chattanooga vs. Indiana and Stony Brook vs. Kentucky, and they scored an average – and estimated — 2.8 rating/5 share in the household overnights in primetime. Comparably, this was 39 percent below the two featured games on CBS on the year-ago evening. As a reminder, results for any live sporting event are always approximate.

In season-finale news, “How To Get Away With Murder” on ABC won the 10 p.m. hour with a 4.1/ 7 in the overnights. But that was 37 percent below the 6.5/11 for the year-ago season-finale (on 2/26/15). It was 20 percent below the 9:30 p.m. portion of lead-in “Scandal” (5.1/ 8). And it five percent below the 4.3/ 7 for “American Crime” on the year-ago evening. The moral of the story: Putting a scripted drama on a long hiatus is not a good idea.

Earlier in the evening on ABC was warhorse “Grey’s Anatomy” at a dominant 6.2/10 at 8 p.m., followed by aforementioned “Scandal” at a 5.1/ 8 at 9 p.m. Of the three ABC TGIT dramas, only “Grey’s Anatomy” was not negatively impacted by the hiatus.

Next Thursday, ABC drama “The Catch” from Shonda Rhomes debuts at 10 p.m.

Elsewhere, two more hours of Fox’s soon-to-conclude “American Idol” won the night overall with a 5.8/10 on households from 8-10 p.m. NBC populated this third March Thursday with failing “You, me and the Apocalypse” (#4: 1.8/ 3), a repeat of “The Blacklist” (#4: 2.0/ 3) and freshman “Shades of Blue” (#2: 3.7/ 7), which grew by 85 percent from “The Blacklist” encore. And The CW aired repeats of dramas “D.C.’s Legends of Tomorrow” (#5: 9.9/ 2) and “The 1oo” (#5: 0.5/ 1).

Source: Nielsen Media Research