CBS March Madness Ratings Down - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

NCAA Tournament ratings on CBS declined for the first weekend of March Madness, with a 4.8 household rating/11 share over the first four days, compared with a 5.3/12 last year, a 9% decline.

And it could have been even worse than that: Of the 15 time slots in which CBS aired college basketball, ratings were down in 13. The only two where ratings were up were the two Good Friday afternoon time slots. CBS likely saw a somewhat artificial increase in those two slots because last year the first round of the Tournament didn't coincide with Good Friday, meaning this year CBS benefited from people being off work and school and in front of the TV.

What's the reason? A big part of it is that last year, the three biggest stories in the Tournament were the defending champion Florida Gators and the two superstar freshmen, Ohio State's Greg Oden and Texas's Kevin Durant. Those three schools have huge fan bases and attract large television audiences, and the absence of a defending champ or an individual star on par with Oden and Durant makes the Tournament less interesting.

CBS, of course, will say the reason is that they're giving away more of the Tournament online, and that may be true to an extent. March Madness on Demand is bringing in viewers and advertisers at a rate far higher than it did last year. But CBS has to be disappointed at those ratings numbers.