Ratings: Broadcast Finals for March 20, 2014

March Madness tipped off, on CBS, Thursday night and, as usual, the ratings are considerably weak, compared to the regular CBS Thursday night schedule. Just 3.8 million viewers were drawn into the beginning of the tournament. Compared to last year, the first night on CBS was down around a half million viewers and over 15% in the demo ratings. But, the tournament is the dominate force on twitter yesterday as the the tournament swept the top five Nielsen Twitter Ratings, for sports events. The five games ranged between 3.4 and 5.6 million unique audience members, for each game.

With the CBS basically out of the ratings picture, no one else stepped up to draw the displaced viewers. ABC was up, slightly, over last week, with GREY'S ANATOMY and SCANDAL getting a one tenth of a ratings point rise in the A18-49 ratings.

FOX tied ABC in total viewers, but dropped about 15% in the demo ratings, from last week's numbers. Given BIG BANG being preempted, I would have expected HELL'S KITCHEN to have seen some sort of rise in the numbers.

NBC, still in 4th place, did see an increase in it's numbers. but just 6% in viewers and even in the demo numbers is nothing to write home about. Especially when you consider how low the ratings are to begin with.
 

Preliminary Network Averages:

ABC - 6.9 million viewers, 2.0 rating in Adults 18-49

CBS - 3.7 million viewers, 1.2 rating in Adults 18-49

CW - 1.9 million viewers, 0.9 rating in Adults 18-49

FOX - 6.9 million viewers, 1.9 rating in Adults 18-49

NBC - 3.4 million viewers, 1.1 rating in Adults 18-49

Time	Net	Program	Viewers*	A18-49	+/-
8:00	ABC	Once Upon A Time in Wonderland	3.51	0.8
9:00	ABC	Grey's Anatomy	8.09	2.4	130%
10:00	ABC	Scandal	9.08	2.9	12%
8:00	CBS	NCAA Basketball Tournament	3.79	1.0
8:00	CBS	NCAA Basketball Tournament	3.64	1.3
8:00	CW	The Vampire Diaries	2.28	1.1
9:00	CW	Reign	1.61	0.7	-27%
8:00	FOX	Hell's Kitchen	5.34	1.8
9:00	FOX	American Idol	8.41	2.0	58%
8:00	NBC	Community	3.32	1.1
8:30	NBC	Parks & Rec	3.05	1.2	-11%
9:00	NBC	Hollywood Game Night	2.87	0.9	-3%
10:00	NBC	Parenthood	4.22	1.3	40%

* - in millions