March Madness helps fuel CBS’ ratings victory

CBS’ coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, combined with the customary strength of its regular programming, made it the most-watched network for the 19th time in the prime-time television season’s 26 weeks.

Although Fox Broadcasting got a 1-2 finish from the week’s two “American Idol” broadcasts, CBS had each of the next eight most-watched shows and averaged 10.82 million viewers for its prime-time programming between March 15 and Sunday.

CBS was the most-watched network on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, when its prime-time programming consisted entirely of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament coverage, according to figures released Tuesday by the Nielsen Co.

The week’s most-watched cable program was Sunday’s premiere of the Discovery Channel nature documentary series “Life,” which averaged 6.14 million viewers. That would have put it 43rd among the programs on the five major broadcast networks.