Great stretch of sports programming with NCAA championship game, Masters buoys CBS in ratings

NCAA title game, Masters propel CBS in ratings

NEW YORK — Tiger Woods’ return to golf and a thrilling NCAA men’s basketball championship capped a successful season of sports programming at CBS.

The Masters averaged 13.8 million viewers over the weekend, as Phil Mickelson’s third championship eventually overshadowed Woods’ first time back on the course since being sidelined by a sex scandal.

That’s up 17 percent over last year, but it wasn’t a record. CBS had better ratings for the Masters in 2001 and 1997 — two years when Woods won, the Nielsen Co. said Tuesday.

Last week’s basketball championship between Duke and Butler had just less than 24 million viewers, the biggest audience for that annual game since the Connecticut-Duke game in 1999.

CBS started its sports season by setting an all-time viewership record for the Super Bowl in February.

In prime-time, ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” eclipsed Fox’s “American Idol” for the second week in a row. CBS’ “60 Minutes” had strong ratings for Steve Kroft’s interview with John Gotti Jr, the son of one of the most notorious mobsters in the United States, the Teflon Don, John Gotti.

For the week, CBS averaged 11.6 million viewers (7.2 rating, 12 share). Fox was second with 8.7 million (5.2, 9), ABC had 7.4 million (4.8, 8), NBC had 5.2 million (3.4, 6), the CW had 1.9 million (1.2, 2) and ION Television had 1 million (0.7, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision had 3.2 million viewers (1.7, 3), Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 860,000 (0.4, 1), Estrella had 230,000 and Azteca 180,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC’s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.1 million viewers (5.4, 11). ABC’s “World News” was second with 7.3 million (4.9, 10), and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.2 million viewers (3.6, 7).

A ratings point represents 1,149,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.9 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of April 5-11, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: Butler vs. Duke, 23.94 million; “Dancing With the Stars,” ABC, 21.21 million; “American Idol” (Tuesday), Fox, 20.84 million; “American Idol” (Wednesday), Fox, 20.17 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 16.45 million; “The Mentalist,” CBS, 16.32 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 15.03 million; “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” CBS, 14.97 million; “Undercover Boss,” CBS, 14.68 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 13.79 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by General Electric Co. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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