‘60 Minutes’ ticks off a win

Newsmagazine show’s previous audience victory was more than eight years ago.

The absence of original episodes of CBS’ five mostwatched scripted series and coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament helped “60 Minutes” finish atop the weekly prime-time television ratings for the first time in more than eight years.

“60 Minutes” averaged 14.699 million viewers, its largest audience since Nov. 27, to finish first among prime-time programs broadcast between March 20 and Sunday, according to live-plus-same day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.

The news magazine’s last weekly victory was in the week ending Nov. 16, 2008, when it aired the first postelection interview of President-elect Obama and his wife, Michelle.

“60 Minutes” began 34 minutes late in the Eastern and Central time zones, where the bulk of the nation’s population lives, because of North Carolina’s 7573 victory over Kentucky in the South Regional final.

The prime-time runover of the game averaged 20.41 million viewers. The runover is not considered a separate program but is included in the weekly average.

CBS devoted its entire Thursday and Friday primetime schedules to the tournament and was the mostwatched network on both nights. Friday’s UCLA-Kentucky South Regional was the night’s most-watched program, averaging some 9.995 million viewers, finishing seventh for the week.

However, the ABC drama “Grey’s Anatomy” was Thursday’s most-watched program, averaging some 7.802 million viewers, 14th for the week.

The AMC horror series “The Walking Dead” was the most-watched cable program for the sixth time in seven weeks, averaging 10.543 million viewers, sixth overall.

“The Walking Dead” was the most-watched program among viewers ages 18-49 for the fourth consecutive week, averaging 6.266 million viewers among the group targeted by ABC, Fox, NBC and many cable networks and coveted by advertisers. The UCLA-Kentucky game was second in that demographic, averaging 4.144 million, followed by “Empire,” which averaged 3.618 million.

CBS averaged 7.43 million viewers for its primetime programming for the week for its third consecutive weekly victory and 14th in the 27-week-old season.

NBC averaged 5.57 million viewers to finish second for the third consecutive week. Its Tuesday and Monday episodes of “The Voice” were among the week’s six programs to average more than 10 million viewers, finishing fourth and fifth for the week, averaging 10.837 million and 10.74 million.