March Madness was gratifyingly crazy, on an otherwise dull night.
DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary key advertiser demographics (adult 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares) and total viewership (thousands of people over the age of 2).
Ratings analysis and comparisons follow the chart.
CBS: The appeal of live “events” on network TV continued last night, as the first (real) round of the NCAA TOURNAMENT was at 2.0 over the course of the evening. Although those numbers may very well shift with afternoon finals, for now the Tournament is up a terrific 0.9 from last year’s preliminaries for the parallel night.
ABC: GREY’S ANATOMY held at 2.1, but despite a Lena Dunham guest appearance, SCANDAL lost 0.3 to 2.4, and AMERICAN CRIME declined a further 0.2 to 1.2.
NBC: DATELINE dipped into the headlines for a Robert Durst hour, and that boosted the show by 0.3 from last week to 1.2. THE BLACKLIST benefited a bit, up 0.1 to 1.8. THE SLAP, nearing the end of its limited run, was also up 0.1 to 0.8.
FOX: AMERICAN IDOL was steady at 1.8.
CW: THE VAMPIRE DIARIES gained 0.1 to 0.7, and REIGN held at 0.4.
A Broadway reference is appropriate here, so let’s say FOX is experiencing a Sunrise, Sunset moment. On Wednesday, EMPIRE was crowned as TV’s biggest musical scripted phenomenon since… GLEE, which will exit much more quietly with a 2-hour finale tonight. GRIMM returns from a hiatus, and CW will give the IZOMBIE pilot another run.
COMPARISONS TO SIMILAR NIGHTS: Preliminary adult 18-49 ratings versus the same night last year and same night last week.
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