The Game Show Forum > Game Show Channels & Networks
GSN ratings?
Matt Ottinger:
[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 29 2004, 01:10 PM\'] It's a big ratings hit. CBS lost 13 million viewers from March 11 to March 18. Does that hit translate into increased viewership for the final? Hard to say. [/quote]
Compared to what? Last week? Season averages? The significant hit that CBS takes is on Thursday, and even if they were to be able to move those games to Spike or something (maybe not a horrible idea), I doubt they'd run first-run episodes of Survivor and CSI against their prized sports package.
Also, even though they have fewer viewers, the viewers they get are those beer-drinking, sportscar-wanting young men that advertisers crave.
Remember, the early rounds of the NCAA were once relegated to cable and have fairly recently moved TO the network. There's a lot more to this for CBS than the raw numbers.
CaseyAbell:
I'm using the actual prime time viewer numbers for March 11 (the last Thursday before hoops) and March 18 (the first Thursday of hoops). CBS went from 23.3 million viewers to 10.0 million. The second Thursday of hoops got 10.5 million. Mediaweek references:
http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/columns...t_id=1000462434
http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/columns...t_id=1000468800
http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/columns...t_id=1000474222
Scroll down to the "Final Thursday Nationals" on each reference. By the way, the final nationals for March 4 showed 21.2 million prime time viewers for CBS. No matter how you cut it, early-round hoops knock CBS's usual viewership numbers down by at least half on Thursday.
Are these losses worth it? I guess CBS thinks so, though there may be some in-house dissent. It is a big hit to take on what is usually a powerhouse night for the network. Does it help the numbers for the final? Maybe, but there's plenty of weekend hoops exposure on CBS, anyway.
SRIV94:
[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 29 2004, 11:51 AM\'] Scroll down to the "Final Thursday Nationals" on each reference. By the way, the final nationals for March 4 showed 21.2 million prime time viewers for CBS. No matter how you cut it, early-round hoops knock CBS's usual viewership numbers down by at least half on Thursday.
[/quote]
A little perspective, though--CBS hadn't had a mega Thursday night hit combo with SURVIVOR and CSI in a looooong time (for a time, NBC almost completely dominated Thursday night to the point where ABC and CBS couldn't really compete). If you go back to the years where CBS' NCAA run started (they started doing opening round games exclusively starting in March 1991), you may find that the viewer losses were minimal (and perhaps might have actually been gains).
Doug
CaseyAbell:
Possibly, but "that was then, this is now." Hey, it wouldn't bother me if CBS put hoops on every night. I wouldn't watch, anyway. But those two Thursdays do free up a lot of viewers for other outlets, as the MediaLifeMagazine article pointed out. So maybe Kenny vs. Spenny did pick up a few refugees from b-ball, which was the only point I wanted to make.
Fedya:
Isn't the NCAA Basketball tournament popular on college campuses, which Nielsen is going to have a hard time figuring in to its ratings? I'd think those are exactly the sorts of people CBS would want to advertise to, if you believe the idea that only males below 35 matter.
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