March Madness Boosts Cable’s Share Of TV Viewing, Nielsen Says

‘Reacher’ was the most streamed show in March. (Photo Courtesy of Prime Video)

March Madness gave cable TV a boost in user-ship that was as predictable as all of the top-seeded teams making it into the Final Four.

Meanwhile, the field was a bit more open in the streaming bracket, where the top 10 shows for the month were distributed by seven different platforms.

As is standard for this time of year, total time spent watching TV in March was down 6% from February, according to Nielsen’s monthly report. Boosted by college basketball, cable’s share of viewing rose to 24% from 23.2% in April. In addition to sports, news viewing was strong on cable, with 11 million viewers watching President Trump’s address to Congress on Fox News.

Streaming also increased its share, rising to 43.8% of usage from 43.5%. Nielsen, which combined Disney’s streaming services into a single entry in January, has now also put Max into a reporting entity called Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming. WBD Streaming had a 1.5% share of viewing, up from 1.2% for Max in February, thanks to the performance of The White Lotus.

For the purposes of its monthly report, Nielsen has also aggregated Paramount+ and Pluto TV into Paramount Streaming. Nielsen said the changes are designed to better represent these companies as they go to market.

YouTube, the top streaming platform, grew its share to 12%.

The top streaming show for the month was Reacher, which appears on Amazon Prime Video. Prime Video was one of seven streamers represented in the Top 10, according to Nielsen. Reacher was followed by Family Guy on Hulu, Bluey on Disney+, The White Lotus on Max, 1923 on Paramount+, Running Point, Love is Blind and Adolescence on Netflix and Severance on Apple TV+.

With the end of football season, broadcast viewing fell 9% and its share dropped to 20.5% from 21.2%, underscoring the power of the NFL.

The biggest broadcast show was The Oscars with 20.3 million viewers across ABC and a simulcast on Hulu. Viewers who watched the Academy Awards on Hulu were three-times as likely to be in the 18-34 demo and twice as likely to be 35-49 vs. broadcast viewers. Nielsen noted that a similar pattern was seen during the Super Bowl, which was televised on Fox and Fox’s Tubi streaming service.

Scripted dramas accounted for 28% of broadcast viewing in March. Tracker on CBS had five of the top 10 broadcast telecasts, with each averaging over 10 million viewers despite competition from college basketball on Sunday nights.