Basketball No Help to CBS in Ratings Race

Despite all the hype, media attention and talk around various office water coolers, CBS’ coverage of Thursday’s first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament saw the network fall into fourth place for the night in the national television ratings.

CBS’ prime-time coverage of an assortment of eight games averaged an 8.1 rating, according to figures released Friday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. With each national rating point being equivalent to 921,000 households, that means about 7.4 million households were tuned in.

NBC won the night with a 14.5 and ABC was second at 11.9. Fox, which only has two hours of programming Thursday, averaged an 11 rating from 8-10 p.m.

Locally, even with games involving USC and Pepperdine, more viewers were tuned to soap operas and tabloid news programs than basketball. KTTV Channel 11’s coverage of the trial of the four Los Angeles police officers accused in the beating of motorist Rodney G. King also topped CBS’ two early games.

Pepperdine’s 80-70 loss to Memphis State from 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. drew a 2.4 rating. USC’s 84-54 victory over Northeast Louisiana from 7:15-9:15 p.m. had a 5.8. A local ratings point is equivalent to 48,751 households, so the Waves drew about 117,000 households and the Trojans 282,000.

ABC’s “All My Children,” the most-watched daytime program here, scored an 8 rating. “L.A. Law,” which did not compete for viewers against basketball, was the highest-rated prime-time show with a 17.4.