By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Here's a safe bet: Two men's basketball games featuring St. Peter's University landed among the 20 most-watched television programs in primetime last week for the first time ever.
The NCAA tournament's underdog darlings hit the big time with their victories over Kentucky and Murray State, the Nielsen company said.
Fans are obviously intrigued by their story, since the Jersey City school's second game against Murray State had more viewers than the game with Kentucky, one of the NCAA's blue bloods.
The CBS newsmagazine "60 Minutes" has a winning streak that has now reached four straight weeks as the most popular program.
The opening round of the men's NCAA tourney led CBS to a dominant win in the ratings, as the network averaged 5.5 million viewers in primetime. ABC had 3.2 million, NBC had 3.1 million, Fox had 2 million, Univision had 1.5 million, Ion Television had 1 million and Telemundo had 930,000.
Fox News Channel was the most popular cable network, averaging 2.54 million viewers in primetime. TBS had 1.79 million, TNT had 1.63 million, Tru TV had 1.12 million and HGTV had 1.09 million.
ABC's "World News Tonight" won the evening news ratings race with an average of 7.9 million viewers. The "NBC Nightly News" had 6.7 million and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.3 million.
For the week of March 14-20, the 20 most-watched programs, their networks and viewerships:
1. "60 Minutes," CBS, 9.07 million.
2. "NCIS," CBS, 7.55 million.
3. "The Equalizer," CBS, 7.08 million.
4. "NCAA Basketball Pregame" (Saturday), CBS, 6.79 million.
5. NCAA Basketball Tournament: St. Peter's vs. Murray St., CBS, 6.69 million.
6. "Chicago Fire," NBC, 6.66 million.
7. "Chicago Med," NBC, 6.35 million.
8. "The Neighborhood," CBS, 5.8 million.
9. "Bob Hearts Abishola," CBS, 5.71 million.
10. "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 5.6 million.
11. NCAA Basketball Tournament: St. Peter's vs. Kentucky, CBS, 5.46 million.
12. "American Idol," ABC, 5.4 million.
13. "Chicago PD," NBC, 5.33 million.
14. "NCIS: Hawai'i," CBS, 5.1 million.
15. "Survivor," CBS, 5.06 million.
16. NCAA Basketball Tournament: Davidson vs. Michigan St., CBS, 4.96 million.
17. "The Bachelor," ABC, 4.73 million.
18. "Law & Order: SVU," NBC, 4.72 million.
19. "FBI," CBS, 4.65 million.
20. "911: Lone Star," Fox, 4.64 million.
Google is blasted by UK watchdog for what it calls anti-competitive behavior through digital ads
Google was slammed Friday by U.K. regulators who say it's taking advantage of its dominance in digital advertising to thwart competition in Britain, ratcheting up pressure that the tech giant is facing on both sides of the Atlantic over its "ad tech" business practices.
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said that the U.S. company gives preference to its own services to the detriment of online publishers and advertisers in Britain's 1.8 billion pound ($2.4 billion) digital ad market. The watchdog leveled its accusations after an investigation, and the findings could potentially lead to a fine worth billions of dollars or an order to change its behavior.
Google is a major player throughout the digital ad ecosystem, providing servers for publishers to manage ad space on their websites and apps, tools for advertisers and media agencies to buy display ads, and an exchange where both sides come together to buy and sell ads in real time at auctions.
"We've provisionally found that Google is using its market power to hinder competition when it comes to the ads people see on websites," the watchdog's interim executive director of enforcement, Juliette Enser, said in a press release.
The watchdog's charges, known as a statement of objections, arrive two years after it opened its investigation. Google's digital ad business is also the focus of a European Union antitrust investigation and a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit that's set to go to trial this month.
The CMA said that Google's "anti-competitive" conduct is ongoing, but the company disputed the allegations Friday.
"Google remains committed to creating value for our publisher and advertiser partners in this highly competitive sector," the company said in a prepared... Read More