CBS PR Pulled an Omission Trick on Their Final Four Ratings Announcement

CBS announced their Final Four semis ratings today — everything’s fine without Duke and the blue bloods! Up double digits! This is technically true but the issue here, as everyone hip to the game knows, is the games were on cable on TBS last year whereas this year they were on the CBS broadcast network.

As of last May, TBS was in about 91 million homes, according to Bob Seidman at Sports TV Ratings. CBS is in about 20 million more homes. Seidman notes that the ratings for last night’s semifinals games were down about 15% from the 2017 overnights, for games that featured UNC vs. Oregon and Gonzaga vs. South Carolina. This is a more apples-to-apples comparison as those games were also on CBS.

Was CBS lying? No, but that announcement is a pretty blatant attempt at sleight of hand.