NEW YORK – College basketball’s March Madness is lifting CBS and its cable partner TBS in the television ratings.

CBS’ telecast of the Villanova-Kansas matchup to decide a place in the Final Four brought 11.6 million people to CBS on Saturday, typically a quiet night for broadcast television. TBS brought in 10.1 million people on Sunday for the men’s game between North Carolina and Notre Dame.

TBS broke the stranglehold that the news networks have had in the ratings lately as the top cable network for the week. Since TBS will also show the Final Four semifinals and men’s championship game within the next week, it should continue benefiting from an influx in viewers.

Television’s most popular show last week was a familiar one – CBS’ “NCIS” drama, with its New Orleans spinoff finishing second.

CBS averaged 8.4 million viewers in prime time last week. ABC (5.57 million) and NBC (5.56 million) finished in a virtual tie for second. Fox had 3.1 million viewers, Univision had 1.8 million, the CW had 1.26 million, ION Television had 1.25 million and Telemundo had 1.1 million.