Basketball and zombies score
The season finale of “The Walking Dead” and NCAA men’s basketball Midwest Regional final both set ratings records, drawing more viewers than every primetime broadcast program except CBS’ “NCIS.”
Sunday’s 91-minute season finale of the AMC horror drama averaged 15.78 million viewers, its most for a season finale, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen on Tuesday. “The Walking Dead” was the most-watched cable program for the eighth consecutive week.
Kentucky’s 68-66 victory over Notre Dame on Saturday to remain undefeated averaged 14.75 million viewers, the most for any program on TBS.
“NCIS” was the mostwatched prime-time program between March 23 and Sunday, averaging 16.23 million viewers, helping CBS finish first in the network ratings race for the fifth consecutive week since ABC aired the Oscars and the 21st time in the 27-week-old season.
CBS had 10 of the week’s 16 most-watched primetime programs and averaged 8.81 million viewers. ABC was second among the broadcast networks, averaging 6.06 million viewers, followed by NBC, which averaged 5.81 million, and Fox, which averaged 3.73 million.
The three non-CBS programs to make the top 16 were all competition programs — ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” fifth for the week, averaging 13.85 million viewers, and the Monday and Tuesday episodes of NBC’s “The Voice,” seventh and eighth for the week, averaging 12.2 million and 11.62 million.
CBS also finished first among viewers ages 18 to 49, the group targeted by ABC, Fox and NBC and coveted by advertisers because it watches less television and is harder to reach.
The Monday episode of “The Voice” was the mostwatched broadcast program among the group, averaging 4.28 million viewers. Complete cable figures are not available. “The Walking Dead” averaged 10.4 million viewers among the group.
ABC, CBS and NBC each broadcast 22 hours of primetime programming for ratings purposes and Fox 15.
Coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament made TBS the week’s most-watched cable network, averaging 4.65 million viewers, topping Fox.
A third cable program also set a ratings record, Sunday’s three-hour madefor-television movie “Killing Jesus,” which averaged 3.67 million viewers, the most for a program on the National Geographic Channel, which began operating in 2001.
Here are the combined rankings for national prime-time network and cable television last week (March 23-29) as compiled by Nielsen. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish during its scheduled telecast or on a playback device the same day. Nielsen estimates there are 289 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.