Watching NCAA Tournament games online as well as on i-Pad’s or i-Phones drew some staggering numbers.
Turner Sports, CBS Sports and the NCAA announced today that NCAA March Madness on Demand delivered a 22-percent increase in total visits across online and mobile apps for the first day of its second round coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship. In total, there were 7.6 million visits across platforms and there were 3.3 million total hours of live streaming video consumed across broadband and mobile apps.
These numbers are very key when you look at the total number of screens viewed from TV to online and smartphones you see that this was a success.
In addition, NCAA.com and MMOD combined, delivered 4.1 million daily unique visitors online and 774,000 unique users on the mobile apps.
NCAA March Madness on Demand provides live streaming video of every game of the new 68-team tournament as they are broadcast for the first time this year nationally in their entirety on four networks: TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV.
On Thursday, the NCAA March Madness on Demand app which is free to users across all platforms, including on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch (over Wi-fi and 3G) quickly rose to the #1 spot in the App store. For 2011, the MMOD app offers new features for fans to view the games including improved live viewing with richer quality and larger format streams, a personalizable channel lineup feature, and live stats and social companion views.
The Friday TV numbers were also good.
CBS Sports’ and Turner Sports’ exclusive second-round coverage of the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV on Friday, March 18 combined to deliver an overnight household rating/share of 5.9/14, up 31% from a 4.5/11 for CBS Sports’ 2010 coverage, according to Nielsen.
The 5.9/14 was the highest rating for the first Friday of the NCAA Tournament in the metered markets since 1991, when the tournament expanded to four telecast windows for the entire day.
The overall tournament average-to-date, including the FIRST FOUR, in the metered market is a 5.6/13, up +22%from a 4.6/11 over CBS Sports’ 2010 coverage. The 5.6/13 is the highest tournament-to-date rating at this point since 1991 when the Tournament expanded to four telecast windows on Thursday and Friday.
The first telecast window of the day (12:00 NOON-4:45 PM, ET) combined to earn a 4.7/15, up +62% from a 2.9/10 last year.
The second window of the day (3:00-7:00 PM, ET) delivered a 5.7/15, up +54% from a 3.7/11 last year.
The third telecast window of the day (7:00-9:30 PM, ET) delivered a 6.8/14, up +24% from a 5.5/11 in 2010.
Each of the first three windows delivered the highest rating in its window in the metered markets since the Tournament expanded to the four telecast windows in 1991.
And the final window of the day (9:15 PM-12:45 AM, ET) earned a 6.5/12, up +12% from a 5.8/11 last year.
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