NEW YORK—Overall television usage in the U.S. declined for a second straight month, but cable viewing was boosted by the onset of the NCAA basketball playoffs, making cable the only TV format to exhibit growth from February to March, according to Nielsen's March 2023 report of The Gauge, a monthly visualization of total TV and streaming consumption.

On the whole, TV viewing trends in March were in line with seasonal trends, with total TV usage down 2% from February 2023. By comparison, total TV usage declined 4.6% over the same period in 2022, Nielsen said. 

Similar to trends in The Gauge from March 2022, cable was the only category to gain in viewership (+0.6%) and share (+0.8 pts.) this month, finishing at 31.1% share of television. This was not only the largest monthly increase for the cable category since last year's March Madness tournament, but also the first time since August 2022 that cable viewing demonstrated any monthly uptick, Nielsen reported.  

Compared with the same period one year ago, however, cable viewing was down 13.7% in March 2023 and the category has lost 5.9 share points, Nielsen reported. 

At 23.3% share of total TV, broadcast viewing was down 4.4% in March and the category lost 0.6 share points versus February. 

For broadcasters, viewing of the general drama genre increased slightly this month and accounted for 30.5% (largest) of broadcast viewing. Meanwhile, The Oscars drove a 153% increase in the award/ceremonies genre to account for 1.1% of viewing to the broadcast category. 

Compared with March 2022, broadcast viewing has dropped 4.0% and its share of television is down 1.6 share points, Nielsen said.

Viewership of streaming content was down 2.6% in March compared with February, and the streaming category saw its first loss in share (-0.2 pts.) since August 2022, but still finished the month with the largest share of TV at 34.1%. Despite the monthly downturn, however, streaming usage has increased by over a third compared with March 2022.

Across streaming platforms in March, Pluto TV and Peacock showed notable increases. Pluto TV saw the largest increase in usage at 4.6%, which pushed its share to 0.8% of TV. Peacock usage climbed 3.1% to notch a platform-high 1.1% of total TV usage.

Additional streaming highlights included:

• Netflix accounted for 7.3% of total TV usage in March (flat vs. February) as viewers watched more than 4.7 billion minutes of Outer Banks, the most of any streaming program this month, as well as nearly 3.6 billion minutes of You.
• Disney+ was also flat compared with February, accounting for 1.8% of TV viewing, and its new season of The Mandalorian notched over 3.6 billion viewing minutes, making it the second most-streamed program in March.
• YouTube, excluding YouTube TV, remained the most-used streaming platform in March with 7.8% of total TV usage.

ATLANTA—The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, better known as March Madness, is set to return after not taking place in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Turner Sports has shared its redesigned NCAA March Madness Live streaming and second-screen platform that fans can use to watch the tournament action.

NCAA March Madness Live is a multiplatform viewing experience, and this year it is focusing on providing fans with dynamic live video of games, according to Turner Sports. Among the highlights of the new platform are a redesigned Game Center and “The Catch Up” feature.

Game Center serves as the central hub of NCAA March Madness Live, providing news, highlights and interactive content. This year, Game Center will be available on all connected devices and include “Condensed Games” from AT&T 5G, which focus on the most important moments of live game action. Game Center will also feature a new tab with interactive widgets offering polls, quizzes, alerts and more; the widgets will update for every game.

Another new feature, “The Catch Up,” is presented by AT&T 5G and provides a summary of key plays and moments in a game before a viewer starts watching live streaming coverage.

Returning to NCAA March Madness Live is “Fast Break,” presented by AT&T 5G and Nissan, providing an “all-encompassing” look at live tournament action from a single viewing location, according to Turner Sports. Fast Break also offers quick turnaround highlights, real-time analysis, social reaction and commentary for games. Fast Break will be available when there are multiple games being played during the first two rounds of the tournament.

In addition, for fans who fill out tournament brackets with the Capital One NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge, NCAA March Madness Live will provide information on their picks and results, including following their Bracket Challenge group leaderboards.

March Madness Live will share live coverage of all 67 games of the tournament across TNT, TBS, CBS and truTV.

The 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is taking place entirely in Indiana, with most games taking place in Indianapolis. The tournament begins on March 18 and goes through April 5. 

ATLANTA—March Madness, the NCAA’s annual men’s basketball tournament, will officially tip off March 17, and Turner Sports and the NCAA have rolled out a slew of new features for its NCAA March Madness Live streaming app to give fans as much of the action as they can take.

First, March Madness Live will be available across 17 platforms this year, including Google Assistant for the first time, giving fans direct access to live coverage of tournament games.

As far as the new features, the highlight is a Multigame option added to Amazon Fire TV and Android TV platforms that will enable fans to watch simultaneous live coverage of two games during certain windows. Previously, this option had only been available on Apple TV. Another live video addition is the new Catch-Up video powered by AT&T TV, which will provide a summary of key plays or moments that occurred before a viewer started watching the live stream coverage.

March Madness Live will also now help viewers keep track of their bracket predictions during live game coverage. Through either the Watch Page, Gamecenter or with push notifications, viewers can be reminded of the outcomes they predicted during games. In Gamecenter, users can also follow their Bracket Challenge group leaderboards, including access to private chats with other group participants.

For the third consecutive year there will also be the Fast Break feature, providing live tournament action from a single viewing location via “whip-around” coverage with quick turnaround highlights, real-time analysis, social reaction and commentary for all games. Fast Break will be available during the first two rounds of the tournament (March 19-22).

Additional features for the March Madness Live streaming app includes Path to Championship analysis of brackets; Matchup Analysis to help users personalize their bracket picks based on more than 20 stat categories; close-game alerts; live game scoring; and direct access to live radio broadcasts, courtesy of Westwood One, for all 67 games.

Fans can access Turner Sports and CBS Sports’ coverage of all 67 games through CBS web and mobile platforms, as well as live on traditional TV and digital platforms for TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV.

ATLANTA—It’s the most wonderful time of the year for college basketball fans, as March Madness is officially upon us and this year, fans will have more ways to watch all the games of the NCAA Tournament. NCAA March Madness Live—the live streaming suite of products from Turner Sports, in partnership with CBS and the NCAA—will cover all 67 games of this year’s tournament across 16 platforms, more than any previous year, per Turner’s press release.

March Madness Live will be available on fans’ iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, Apple Watch Android handset, Android tablet, Amazon Echo family of devices, Amazon Fire tablets, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream, mobile web, Roku players, Roku TV models, web and Xbox One.

In addition to the expanded availability, the March Madness Live suite also has a number of new features with the goal of improving the users viewing experience. The new “Fast Break” feature, presented by AT&T and Lowe’s, offers live streaming whip-around coverage of every tournament game during the first Thursday and Friday of tournament action. The feature will switch from game-to-game with live look-ins, highlights and commentary.

Apple TV users will be able to watch up to three live games at once through a new multi-game viewing experience available through the March Madness Live app for Apple TV. Also, select games will be offered in virtual reality via March Madness Live VR powered by Intel True VR and available in the Oculus Store and Google Play store; specific details about what games will be available in VR will be announced closer to the tournament.

Other features looking to boost fan experience include an enhanced Capitol One NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge Game, which will provide push notifications for live games and keep them updated on their picks, as well as Bracket IQ, which will offer analysis for game picks. Additional “excitement alerts” will be delivered for big alerts and for access to live radio broadcaster from Westwood One.

Turner’s iStreamPlanet provides the live streaming infrastructure for all games on March Madness Live. Games this year will be available at up to 60fps on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Roku and Xbox.

The NCAA Tournament will be broadcast on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV, while also being offered on the companies’ digital platforms.

The 2018 NCAA Tournament will take place from March 13 to April 2.