TV Ratings Low for Women

CBS-TV’s coverage of Sunday’s NCAA women’s basketball championship game between Stanford and Western Kentucky, held at the Sports Arena, drew a 3.7 rating in the nation’s 25 largest markets, according to figures released Monday by the A.C. Nielsen Co.

If that holds up when national figures are announced Thursday, it will match the lowest rating in the 11-year history of the event.

Ratings in Los Angeles were lower than the average of the major markets. The championship game had a 3 rating here. With each local point being equivalent to 48,751 homes, that meant about 146,000 households were watching.

Saturday’s Stanford-Virginia semifinal proved to be the best-rated of the three women’s Final Four games televised, with a 5.3 rating. The audience for that game may have been buoyed by viewers tuning in for the pregame show for the men’s semifinal game between Cincinnati and Michigan.

The pregame show had been scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. PST but didn’t go on the air until 2:52 because the women’s coverage did not end until 2:49. The first women’s semifinal between Southwest Missouri State and Western Kentucky drew a 2.6 rating.

The Western Kentucky-Southwest Missouri State semifinal had a 1.9 and Stanford-Virginia a 3.1 in the Los Angeles area.

The numbers were a lot better for those who watched the two days of competition in person. More than 25,000 showed up for the weekend.