Ratings Archives: March 1997

For this week's release of the USA Today ratings chart, for March 1997, I only have three of the four weeks available. Either I lost the week of March 3, 1997, or the USA Today did not publish that week's chart. I tend to go with the latter because if the ratings were not in before the printing deadline for that week, it was not assured that they would add it to the Thursday edition. But we will make due with what we have.

March Madness is in full swing for CBS. The first two days of the NCAA Tournament averaged about 8.5 million viewers in prime time. The second round games on Saturday did a little better, generating 10.5 million viewers.

For round three, on the following Thursday & Friday, the prime time average rose to 9.5 - 10 million viewers, but the fourth round games on Saturday night stayed even at 10.5 million, but the final game only bled into prime time during the 8pm hour.

The Final four round, played on Saturday, March 29th, drew nice numbers. The first game averaged around 15 million viewers, but started at 5:30 ET. Game two of the semi-finales collected 19 million viewers, but that was only good enough to rank 10th for the week.

What was #1 for the week of March 24th? THE ACADEMY AWARDS. The Monday night broadcast drew over 40 million viewers. This was the year that Cuba Gooding Jr. won Best Supporting Actor for his role in JERRY MCGUIRE. But even with ABC airing the OSCARS, they could only manage a tie with NBC for the weekly network win.

Hoping to get some effect on the anticipation of the OSCARS, UPN aired the BLOCKBUSTER ENTERTAINMENT AWARDS  two weeks before ABC's coverage of the ACADEMY AWARDS. It only received 1/10 of the ratings the OSCARS pulled and ranked 110th for the week.

Nielsen Broadcast ratings charts for March 10, 1997 to March 30, 1997