Topline
The University of Iowa's defeat of two top-rated teams ahead of the women's NCAA Championship last week were the most-watched programs across all of primetime TV on a single network—by a wide margin—drawling an audience of 13.9 million and 12.3 million viewers, respectively, to ESPN and beating other top-rated shows like "FBI,” “Young Sheldon" and the CMT Music Awards.
Caitlin Clark, No. 22 of the Iowa Hawkeyes, shoots in the game against the UConn Huskies on April ... [+]
Key Facts
The Iowa v. Connecticut matchup on April 5, in the Final Four round of March Madness, was the program with the biggest live audience on television in the week of April 1 to April 7 with 13.9 million viewers, Nielsen data shows, making it the most watched basketball game since 2019—including in the NBA and men’s NCAA tournament.
The game shattered the women’s college basketball viewership record set days before by the Iowa v. Louisiana State University matchup, which drew 12.3 million viewers to see the two most talked about women in the sport, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, go head to head.
The games trounced every other single-network program on television in the week (the next most-watched was the North Carolina State v. South Carolina women's game on April 5 with 8.57 million viewers) and pushed ESPN, home of the women's tournament, to be the most-watched cable channel in primetime.
On average, 3.4 million people were tuned into ESPN between 8 and 11 p.m. on any given day last week, almost doubling the average viewership of the next-most watched channel (Fox News with a 1.86 million average in primetime).
The Alabama v. UConn men's game on April 6 also drew impressive numbers as it was dual simulcast across the TBS and Turner networks—12.9 million people watched in total, with 6.56 million viewing on TBS and 6.39 million watching on Turner Network Television.
The 13 most-watched shows on cable last week were all related to the NCAA tournaments, including the NC State v. Purdue men's game, which drew 10.4 million viewers across both TBS and Turner, and UConn v. USC women’s game with 6.7 million viewers.
Contra
Iowa went on to lose to the South Carolina Gamecocks in the NCAA finals in the second most-watched non-Olympic women's sporting event in U.S. television history, according to ESPN. The game drew 18.9 million viewers on average and peaked at 24.1 million viewers in the final 15 minutes. The game was broadcast on ABC and ESPN at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 7. The matchup’s ESPN viewership did not break into the most-watched programs across all of cable and was not included in Nielsen’s regular rankings of the top broadcast programs, which only lists primetime (from 8 to 11 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time) listings. One day later, an average of 14.8 million people tuned in to watch the men’s NCAA Championship between UConn and Purdue on Monday, marking the first time in history that the women’s championship had a bigger audience than the men’s title game.
Tangent
On broadcast television, the CBS crime drama "FBI," currently in its sixth season, was the most-watched show with 6.8 million viewers. "Young Sheldon" was in the No. 2 spot with 6.7 million, followed by "60 Minutes" (6.6 million), "Chicago Med" (6.3 million) and "Chicago Fire" (6 million).
Big Number
5.38 million. That's how many people tuned in to CBS to watch the CMT Music Awards on April 7, a slight downtick from last year's biggest-ever audience of 5.43 million. This year's numbers are still a 4% increase from the 5.16 million viewers who watched in 2022.
Further Reading
