After enduring two weeks of generally boring basketball and few compelling stories, this news is no surprise:
This year’s [NCAA men's] tournament might become the lowest-rated ever, or at least the lowest without an asterisk. Heading into Thursday’s games, CBS’ ratings were off 9% from last year, which was the lowest-rated ever except the 2003 tournament, when news coverage of the Iraq War’s start preempted some NCAA action. But in national ratings through Saturday’s game, CBS is now down 11% from last year.
Unless you are a fan of any of the Final Four teams or of Davdison (which came thisclose to beating Kansas), this year’s tournament has been a snoozeorama. There have been a lot of blowouts and few games where you stood up and said wow. We can only hope that four No. 1 seeds in the Final Four will salvage things next weekend.
The games have not made for appointment TV and the insane number of commercials makes them almost unwatchable. The commercials come in large bunches and even in the final seconds of games. The best way to watch is to tape games on a DVR and fast forward. I did that yesterday with a friend for the second half of Kansas-Davidson and we estimated we saved at least a half hour by skipping the commercials, CBS promos and dead time. –Jim Buzinski
on Mar 31st, 2008 at 6:11 PM
I know I’ve watched less of the tourney than in previous years. I have no connection to any of the schools and there’s no Cinderella underdog to root for so with four #1 seeds I’m not sure how much I’ll watch this coming weekend.
on Mar 31st, 2008 at 9:53 PM
I watched a couple games this weekend online, and the commercials at the end of games were intolerable. They would play the same ones over and over and over again, at a higher volume level than the game call. I ended up turning it off for 2-3 minutes and trying to jump back in before missing anything. If I were in front of a TV, I also would have DVR’ed it.
on Apr 1st, 2008 at 12:27 AM
The best way to watch the NCAA Tournament is by watching it on “THE SCORE” here in Canada… when the game they’re showing goes to commercial, they jump to another game… and if one game is boring, they’ll jump to another that’s close… you get to see a little bit of everything!
on Apr 1st, 2008 at 9:42 AM
I agree, it’s been damn near unwatchable. Other than the Kansas – Davidson game, it’s been mainly snoozefests. Boooooooring. I was trying to watch KU at a bar on Sunday, and every time I looked at the TV there was a commercial on – and that was during the last 4 minutes of a tight game. The NCAA, like every other sports entity, refused to leave well enough alone. They’ve killed the goose that layed the golden egg.