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CBS Sees Explosive Growth in Online NCAA Viewing

By Mark

Opening March Madness On Demand to free viewing for all games has proven to be the correct strategy for CBS, as the network has seen explosive growth in the online viewership of the NCAA tournament's first round games. Viewership of just Thursday's set of first round games exceeded all of last year's online viewers combined, as the expansion of outlets to social networking sites fueled growth in demand. A total of over 1, 750,000 unique visitors accessed the site according to figures supplied by CBS, representing 122% growth over last year.

CBS attributes much of the growth to a drop in the requirement for advance registration. allowing for instant access to viewing. Also contributing greatly to the growth, and operating in conjunction with the drop in registration was the expansion of access to the player to partner sites across the Internet, including social networking sites including Facebook, Myspace and others. There was practically no major online presence where you could be where there was no instant availability of the March Madness On Demand player. Clearly, free advertising supported viewing of the tournament is well received in the marketplace and has become a now commonly accessed adjunct to the telecast of the tournament. I know that I had the tournament on both my laptop screen and my big screen for most of Thursday and Friday afternoon, as my local CBS was locked in to games without cutaways because local teams were playing. CBS should make well in excess of last year's $25 million from the On Demand product, which will be a welcome supplement to the broadcast revenues.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on March 22, 2008 (boomark / email).