College Hoops Final on CBS Dominates Monday; NBC’s ‘Voice’ is Loudest Series

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CBS rolled to a primetime ratings victory in key demos Monday as Connecticut’s victory over Kentucky in the college basketball men’s championship game is expected to more than double the young-adult tune-in of the night’s top series, NBC’s “The Voice.”

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According to preliminary national estimates from Nielsen, college basketball averaged a 6.0 rating/16 share in adults 18-49 and 17.8 million viewers overall from 9:30 to 11 p.m., though the game didn’t end until close to midnight in the East. In the metered-market overnights, Monday’s game did a 14.2 household rating/23 share (peaking with a 17.3/32 at 11:30 p.m.), up 11% in rating vs. last year’s overnight for Louisville-Michigan (12.9/21).

Last year’s game ended up doing an 8.4/22 in 18-49 and 23.43 million viewers overall in the nationals.

NBC’s “The Voice” (3.4/9 in 18-49, 11.8 million viewers overall) matched last week’s demo average despite facing the big basketball game, standing as Monday’s top series in 18-49 and 25-54 (4.3/10). The Peacock closed the night with a special episode of new Sunday reality series “American Dream Builders” (1.6/4 in 18-49, 5.5 million viewers overall), which benefited from its strong lead in to log easily the show’s best averages in its four airings to date; its 18-49 high on Sunday was a 0.9.

At ABC, “Dancing With the Stars” (2.1/6 in 18-49, 13.9 million viewers overall) was down a bit in the demo and up slightly in total viewers vs. last week. And compared to last year on the Monday of the college basketball title game, “Dancing” was the only returning original up in total viewers; “NBC’s “The Voice” and Fox’s “The Following” were down 16% and 30%, respectively. And at 10, “Castle” (1.3/4 in 18-49, 8.6 million viewers overall) was high for a repeat, likely benefiting from a lack of drama competition on either CBS or NBC.

Fourth-place Fox’s “Bones” (1.6/5 in 18-49, 6.5 million viewers overall) was up a tick from last week, and “The Following” (1.4/4 in 18-49, 4.4 million viewers overall) figures to be up slightly as well with an expected rise to 1.5 in the nationals.

CW aired an original “Star-Crossed” (0.3/1 in 18-49, 1.0 million viewers overall), which was down slightly from last week, and an encore “The Tomorrow People” (0.2/1 in 18-49, 0.8 million viewers overall).

Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: CBS, 4.9/13; NBC, 2.8/8; ABC, 1.8/5; Fox, 1.5/4; Univision, 1.2/3; Telemundo, 0.5/1; CW, 0.3/1.

In total viewers: CBS, 14.6 million; ABC, 12.1 million; NBC, 9.7 million; Fox, 5.5 million; Univision, 2.8 million; Telemundo, 1.2 million; CW, 0.9 million.