About 64 million people – or about a third of all U.S. Internet users – visited a World Cup-related website such as ESPN.com, Univision.com, FIFA.com, or Yahoo! Sports.

An average of 9.9 million people in the U.S. watched LeBron James choose his next basketball destination, according to The Nielsen Company.

From World Cup and beyond, George Bodenheimer, President ESPN, discussed the role of three screens in the evolving media landscape during Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference.

On average, NBA playoff viewership is up 18% across TNT, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC thanks in part to a pair of Conference final games. On May 26th, the Cavs and Magic pulled 10.1 million viewers in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Championship Series on TNT – the most ever for an NBA Playoff game on cable and the most-watched cable telecast of the year. And the Lakers-Nuggets’ Game 4 of the Western Conference Championship Series delivered 9.7 million viewers - the most ever for a basketball game (college or pro) in ESPN’s history.

Monitoring traffic to three major web properties – ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, and CBS Sports – during the recent NCAA Basketball Tournament shows a spike in activity over last year (Y-O-Y) and the boost in traffic compared to the previous month (M-O-M).

Unique Audience  And % Change

Site
Mar-08
Feb-09
Mar-09
M-O-M
Y-O-Y

CBS Sports
15,106,000
10,684,000
18,127,000
70%
20%

ESPN
19,844,000
17,181,000
22,938,000
34%
16%

Yahoo! Sports
19,432,000
24,953,000
25,515,000
2%
31%

Source: Nielsen Online

Additionally, video streaming on CBS Sports saw massive gains during the tournament, with nearly a 300% gain in unique users watching video. Those viewers racked up more than 380 million minutes of viewing time in March.

CBS …

Brand advertising budgets took a hit in 2008, with expenditures dropping 2.6 percent compared to 2007. While most media suffered, two bright spots were Hispanic cable TV, where ad spending grew 9.6 percent, and cable TV, where growth was 7.8 percent.  But what has happened to online advertising?
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With the brackets set and first round matchups set to tip off on Thursday, Nielsen has released its first annual Guide To March Madness, which tracks a range of consumer and media information surrounding the event.
“The NCAA Tournament is very attractive to sports marketers even in tough economic times,” said Tom Ziangas, SVP for Nielsen Sports. “The games playing out over several weeks make it a sort of mini-series for viewers. There’s always some unexpected drama or Cinderalla story – like Davidson College last year – that makes March Madness a …

Not all networks are created equal when it comes to getting men and women together to watch prime time TV, according to a new study by Nielsen PreView. And advertisers can capitalize on this fact, particularly when it comes to promoting products like jewelry and even grooming products for men.
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NBA fans will have quite a few presents to unwrap on Christmas Day, with none bigger than the Boston Celtics-Los Angeles Lakers matchup on ABC. The teams square off for the first time since last year’s NBA Finals. When the Celtics defeated the Lakers for their 17th championship in June, the series received an average of 14.9 million viewers, the most for the NBA Finals in five years.
Since ABC obtained NBA broadcasting rights in 2002, the network’s Christmas Day games have averaged a 4.1 rating and 6.9 million viewers nationally. …

NFL games airing in primetime are breaking records this season, and they share one common denominator: the Dallas Cowboys.
First it was the thrilling September 15th matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles on ESPN’s Monday Night Football.  The Cowboys prevailed in a 41-37 shootout watched by 18.6 million viewers, the most ever for a cable program.