Just How Much Is March Madness Dominating Live TV Viewership?

Welcome to our weekly snapshot of TV by the numbers, highlighting the most-watched shows and networks for Mar. 13-19 with insights from Inscape, the currency-grade smart TV ACR data provider and data technology division of Vizio. Data is linear, live TV only and includes all episode types (new and reruns). Rankings are by percent share duration (i.e., time spent watching).

The 2023 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament accounted for nearly 10% of all minutes watched during the week, far surpassing anything else on TV. When you add in women’s basketball — which is still being deprioritized as TVREV’s John Cassillo recently wrote about — March Madness overall ticks up to nearly 11%. To give you a sense of how big that is, consider that a non-NFL No. 1 program usually hovers around 1-2% of watch-time, with big NFL weeks scoring 6-8% (this year’s Super Bowl and related coverage accounted for 9.4% of watch-time for its week).

Some additional insights about the top programming on TV:

• The 2023 World Baseball Classic jumps into third place from No. 12 previously, accounting for 0.88% of minutes watched, as the U.S. team marched through the quarter and semifinals. 

• March Madness is pulling attention away from NBA games: It slips to No. 6 from No. 3 previously, with 0.77% of watch-time compared to the previous week’s 1.22%.

• Thanks to reruns on ION and USA Network, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit moves into second place from No. 7 previously, with 0.99% of minutes watched. 

• Week-over-week ranking newcomers include Gunsmoke (No. 11), Chicago P.D. (No. 21) and The First 48 (No. 23). 

On the network side of things, CBS takes first place with 9.73% of watch-time, much of which was driven by the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. ABC and NBC slip to second and third places, respectively.

Additional insights around the most-watched networks from Mar. 13-19:

• Only three networks maintain their ranking positions week-over-week: Fox News (No. 4), Fox (No. 5) and CW (No. 19). 

• Thanks almost entirely to March Madness, truTV vaults into the ranking at No. 17, snagging 1.31% of minutes watched. 

• TNT, also benefiting from basketball, jumps from No. 17 to No. 8 on the ranking with 2.20% of watch-time. 

• Aside from truTV, week-over-week ranking newcomers include Fox Sports 1 (No. 22, 1.07% of minutes watched) and INSP (No. 23, 1.05%).