High Ratings for CBS' NCAA Internet Stream

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003728947

This past week marked the start NCAA basketball championship tournament, also more affectionately referred to as "March Madness". It also marked the third straight year that CBS has broadcast the games over a live video stream titled "March Madness on Demand" through their website. A few upgrades were made to the launch this year and they have paid great dividends. The online viewership of these feeds are up 122 percent from last years reported numbers at this time. The total unique visitors recorded on Friday were 1,751,956 (compared to the 789,045 in 2007).


This year, the stream is live, in HD (high definition), and can be found as cbssportsline.com. Apart from being offered in HD, there are also many other changes to this years broadcast. For instance, CBS had increased their streaming capacity which allows them to offer all 63 games and deliver them to the consumer with a significantly shorter wait time. CBS also removed certain registration requirements that were placed on the stream the past two years. An additional "Boss Button" was also added to ensure the jobs of the consumers will not be in jeopardy for fear of being caught by their bosses. If you think you may be in danger of being discovered slacking on the job you can quickly click this button and a fake spreadsheet will fill the screen to present the illusion that you are still hard at work. It has been reported that this "Boss Button" alone has generated 1.2 million clicks.


Furthermore, perhaps the largest change from years past, was the way that the online stream was advertised. CBS decided to use an aggressive distribution strategy and "place links to its site’s coverage of the games on 200 sites across the Web, including Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo Sports and SI.com." This change, above all others, is credited with the high increase in traffic to the site and CBS and its advertisers could not be happier about it. Jason Kint, Senior VP and General Manager of CBSSports.com, said that he estimated the audience growth to be around 50 percent over last year and had no idea that it would be this huge. He also stated that, “Pushing the links all over the Web was a huge factor.”

Personally, I have used this stream quite a lot over the past week and found it to be absolutely amazing. The HD picture and streaming quality that CBS has been able to produce through a live feed over the Internet simply astounds me. Add in the individual game commentary, full screen feature, and they power to switch back and forth between three or four different games at your leisure and it is like having your own HDTV. Not to mention, CBS only has the capability to broadcast one game at a time on television (unless you have an extended sports package, in which case you may be able to watch two). I think this was a perfect choice of medium to broadcast the NCAA basketball tournament and CBS is coming through almost flawlessly with March Madness on Demand. I heard about the website both through their television broadcast and their website, which I went to in order to print out my bracket. However, I also noticed their advertisements on Facebook, YouTube, and Yahoo Sports. Pretty much wherever you may go to in order to view a NCAA tournament bracket or highlights, they have a link. This was a great use of advertisements to promote a great use of media. I applaud CBS for an all around great job.