MARCH GLADNESS FOR TV NETWORKS

The NCAA College Basketball Championships both drew big audiences for the men’s and women’s games. Airing across TBS, TNT, and truTV, the men’s championship game averaged 18.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched in seven years. The women drew nearly 10 million to ABC for the third-highest audience since Nielsen started measuring the game in 1989, (2024 set the all-time record, because… Caitlin Clark.) The tournament was a winner overall, with the women’s Final Four scoring its second-highest ratings ever (Again, The Year of Clark took #1) and the men’s tournament, which included games on CBS, was the second-most-watched since 1994. (Yahoo! Sports: April 8, 2026; USA Today April 8, 2026)

BIG OPENING DAY(S) FOR MLB

As NCAA basketball was drawing to a close, baseball was just getting started. A few technical glitches didn’t matter to the 3 million people who watched Netflix’s opening night Yankees/Giants game. The platform reports that it was the youngest audience for an MLB opening game in 10 years (excluding the pandemic-delayed 2020 season). And when the rest of the league played their first games the next day, NBC and Peacock came out on top with their double-header coverage. The Pirates/Mets afternoon game was the most-watched Opening Day afternoon game on record (2.3 million viewers), and the 3.2 million who tuned into the primetime Diamondbacks/Dodgers game was the biggest Opening Day primetime game since 2017. It might still be chilly out, but the boys of summer are back! (Front Office Sports: April 2, 2026)

SMART TV OWNERSHIP KEEPS GROWING

Smart TVs continue to penetrate American households. This year, 81% of those surveyed by Edison Research said they own one, an increase from last year’s 75%. And they aren’t just buying them, they’re using them. Parks Associates recently found that for 61%, the smart TV is their primary device for streaming video. External media players like Apple TV and USB sticks are a distant second at 30%. Both of these findings are significant, as smart TV home screens increasingly influence what audiences choose to watch. (Edison Research: March 12, 2026)

CTV HOME SCREEN ADS PROVE IMPACTFUL

With smart TVs and CTV having become the norm, marketers increasingly see the value in placing ads on the home screens. Compared to standard creative formats, ad enjoyment is boosted by 66%, unaided recall goes up 61%, and viewers are 31% more likely to visit a company’s website. A home screen ad is one of the first things someone sees when they turn on the TV, and it doesn’t interrupt programming, which viewers say they appreciate. (EMarketer: April 6, 2026)