College Basketball: Networks Win : Television: Ratings are down at ABC but the network and syndicator Raycom still turn a profit. Ratings are up slightly at CBS and NBC.

Although ratings fell 23% from the previous year, both ABC and Raycom Inc. say each turned a profit on the network’s college basketball coverage this season.

The 11 telecasts, which concluded March 8, averaged a 2.3 Nielsen rating, which translates to about 2.1 million households. Nine of the broadcasts drew less than a 3 rating and five of those got below a 2. (Each rating point is equivalent to 921,000 households.)

Meanwhile, CBS begins coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament Thursday, an event that has proven far more popular with advertisers and viewers than regular season games. CBS plans more than 61 hours of telecasts through the April 6 title game.

Locally, even when UCLA and USC were playing during the season, old movies and “Bewitched” reruns drew better ratings.

“We were disappointed in the ratings but are not discouraged with the concept of using ABC as a distribution mechanism and concentrating on the regionalization of the games,” said Ken Haines, executive vice president of Raycom, a Charlotte, N.C.-based syndicator.

ABC had a 3 rating for college basketball during the 1990-91 season and said it lost money then.

This was the first season of a two-season agreement between ABC and Raycom in which the network sold blocks of time to the syndicator, which would then produce and sell advertising on its college basketball coverage. ABC supplied the announcers. Raycom said it was able to turn a profit because of relatively low costs for production and the air time.

The other major networks carrying college basketball have registered ratings increases this season. Although CBS has drawn less than a 3 rating for 14 of its 22 telecasts, it was averaging a 3.2 rating, a 3% jump over a year ago, going into last weekend. NBC, which is looking to get out of telecasting college basketball, had a 2.4 for its six telecasts, a 20% rise.

Officials from ABC and Raycom cited the Winter Olympics and heavy viewer interest in the saga of Earvin (Magic) Johnson as reasons for the ratings decline. NBC’s NBA coverage is averaging a 5.6 rating through 15 broadcasts, a 15% increase over last year. Viewership was buoyed on three consecutive Sundays in February when Johnson served as a commentator, played in the All-Star Game and had his number retired by the Lakers.

Another factor in ABC’s drop may be the sheer number of college basketball telecasts, with at least two games on cable nearly every weekday from the day after Thanksgiving until mid-March and as many as 18 on weekends.

“The reality is, like a lot of other sports, there’s just too much damn product out there and it’s impacting the ratings negatively,” said Bill Sherman, a media buyer for the New York-based advertising agency McCann Erickson Worldwide. “As long as that continues, we’re not going to see any growth in these ratings. There’s just a total saturation of the product out there. As you reduce the amount of exposure the better off we’ll be.”

But Sherman doubts that will happen: “The conferences want to maximize their revenues, so they’re out to sell as much of their product as they can to achieve that end. They couldn’t care less for the most part about what’s left for the vendor in terms of ratings he has to sell off of. Eventually the networks aren’t going to be paying the rights that the conferences are looking for and the bubble will break.”