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- ESPN and ESPN2’s Audiences in Prime Time up in March, Including all Key Viewer and Male Demos
- College Football Playoff, NBA and College Basketball among Winter Ratings Highlights
ESPN grew its prime-time audience in March in all the key Male and Adult Viewer demographic groups – ages 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, according to Nielsen. The biggest increase, 8%, was among men 25-54. The boost helped ESPN lead all full-time cable networks in first quarter in total day and in prime time among those six groups.
For total day, ESPN has led cable in the first quarter in the three male demos for at least 11 consecutive years. The network has led cable among the three adult viewer demos for the last three years.
Prime time was also fine for ESPN2. The network’s average audience was up 14% (to 412,000 viewers) and there was similar growth (13-15%) for the six key Person and Male demographic groups.
(Source: Nielsen, 1/1-4/1/18 for the quarter and 2/25/18-4/1/18 for March, M-Su 6a-6a or Cable Prime–Strict Daypart, Includes DTVR, Live+Same Day.)
ESPN Ratings Winter Highlights
- The College Football Playoff posted the second- and third-biggest audiences in cable history. The CFP National Championship (Alabama defeating Georgia in overtime) was seen by an average of 29,932,000 viewers (including out-of-home). The total live audience for the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game (Georgia defeated Oklahoma in overtime) was 28,311,000 viewers (including out-of-home). Furthermore, ESPN’s entire presentation of the New Year’s Six plus the CFP National Championship was the most-watched in the system’s four-year history
- The NBA on ESPN is up 5% in viewership (to 1,659,000 viewers/P2+) for the 2017-18 season, and ABC is up 17% (to 3,891,000) including its most-watched NBA Sunday Showcase in five years (since Feb. 10, 2013), an average of 4,647,000 for Cavaliers-Celtics on February 11. Overall, ABC’s NBA Sunday Showcase posted its best year since the 2013-14 campaign, up 23% from a year ago.
- ESPN aired the most-watched NCAA basketball game of the regular season on TV (broadcast and cable) – North Carolina at Duke on March 3 with an average of 3,369,000 viewers. It was the seventh consecutive year ESPN aired the most-watched game. In addition, between ESPN and ESPN2 the company aired the 156 most-watched college basketball games on cable.
- In college basketball’s Champ Week, the ACC Tournament Championship Game on ESPN helped set the pace for conference championship games across all networks, while the ACC Tournament early rounds set records. ESPN also saw an increase for the Big 12 Championship game, while also simultaneously out-rating the competition during key head-to-head windows in the final weekend of conference championship play and Selection Sunday aftermath (March 9-11).
Earlier today, a press release detailed ESPN’s success in March with weekday studio programming, most notably with First Take and SportsCenter.
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