After enduring two weeks of generally boring basketball and few compelling stories, this news is no surprise:
This year’s [NCAA men’s] tournament might become the lowest-rated ever, or at least the lowest without an asterisk. Heading into Thursday’s games, CBS’ ratings were off 9% from last year, which was the lowest-rated ever except the 2003 tournament, when news coverage of the Iraq War’s start preempted some NCAA action. But in national ratings through Saturday’s game, CBS is now down 11% from last year.
Unless you are a fan of any of the Final Four teams or of Davdison (which came thisclose to beating Kansas), this year’s tournament has been a snoozeorama. There have been a lot of blowouts and few games where you stood up and said wow. We can only hope that four No. 1 seeds in the Final Four will salvage things next weekend.
The games have not made for appointment TV and the insane number of commercials makes them almost unwatchable. The commercials come in large bunches and even in the final seconds of games. The best way to watch is to tape games on a DVR and fast forward. I did that yesterday with a friend for the second half of Kansas-Davidson and we estimated we saved at least a half hour by skipping the commercials, CBS promos and dead time. —Jim Buzinski
After enduring two weeks of generally boring basketball and few compelling stories, this news is no surprise:
This year’s [NCAA men’s] tournament might become the lowest-rated ever, or at least the lowest without an asterisk. Heading into Thursday’s games, CBS’ ratings were off 9% from last year, which was the lowest-rated ever except the 2003 tournament, when news coverage of the Iraq War’s start preempted some NCAA action. But in national ratings through Saturday’s game, CBS is now down 11% from last year.
Unless you are a fan of any of the Final Four teams or of Davdison (which came thisclose to beating Kansas), this year’s tournament has been a snoozeorama. There have been a lot of blowouts and few games where you stood up and said wow. We can only hope that four No. 1 seeds in the Final Four will salvage things next weekend.
The games have not made for appointment TV and the insane number of commercials makes them almost unwatchable. The commercials come in large bunches and even in the final seconds of games. The best way to watch is to tape games on a DVR and fast forward. I did that yesterday with a friend for the second half of Kansas-Davidson and we estimated we saved at least a half hour by skipping the commercials, CBS promos and dead time. —Jim Buzinski
