Best TV Show March Madness Bracket Tournament 2014 – First Round Voting Continues with Top Seeds The Walking Dead, Burn Notice, Scandal, Modern Family, Breaking Bad, New Girl, Dexter, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother and More

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It is time once again for the annual Inside Pulse TV Tournament. Get out your green beer! The biggest and most talked about tournament during the “March Madness” season is back! So stop working or pretending to work and take a look at this year’s bracket.

It’s been two years since the last “Best TV Show” tournament, but so much has changed in the world of TV. Roughly one-third of the shows that were in the 2012 “Best TV Show” tournament are no longer on the air. In addition, cable television and premium channel shows have gotten better while network television shows have stayed about the same. Maybe that is why for the first time last year all of the dramas nominated for an Emmy were not on network television. Lets not forget that this past year Netflix and Amazon have jumped into the original television scene as well. They have released some critically acclaimed shows that can’t be ignored. So lets get to this year’s tournament.

There are 128 shows in this year’s tournament, and believe it or not, it was tough to narrow it down that much. To qualify for this year’s tournament, a show had to have aired a new episode since June 2013. So that automatically disqualifies a few shows from HBO and SHOWTIME and a few cable shows who won’t be back with new seasons until later this year.

There are 32 seeded shows in the tournament. The seeds were selected based on four different criteria: live ratings, DVR ratings, awards, and most-talked about. If a show was watched by a lot people LIVE or on DVR within a few days; it was talked about a lot the next day on social networks; and it got nominated for awards, it likely was selected as a higher seed. The seeds really don’t mean a whole lot, though. If a show is better, just vote for that show.

A few more things before you get to the bracket. Just like the real NCAA Tournament, there were some automatic qualifying shows. They might have been in lesser conferences i.e. networks, but they each won their network tournament to earn a spot in the championship tournament. So you will see a few shows from each of the “lesser” cable networks with more from the “upper” cable and premium networks. But the majority of shows come from ABC, FOX, NBC, CBS, and CW. Even with 128 shows, I’m sure there are still some of your favorites that didn’t make it into the field. But the majority of your favorites should be there. Take a look at the bracket yourself by going here:

2014 Inside Pulse Best Television Show Tournament Bracket

Remember, when you do place your votes in this tournament, you should always vote on what is the best show RIGHT NOW. Some of these shows have been around for years, but if they are not at the top of their game in their current season, and a newer show is, then you should vote for the newer show. Past performance might come into play, but you should judge these shows on their merits today.

As you can see there are four different regions with 8 top seeds each, and 24 other shows. There are 64 matchups in the first round that need YOUR votes! So the time is now. Tell all your friends. It’s up to YOU to VOTE for which show you think is the best on TV. Make sure to vote for all the matchups as every vote counts.


First Round Matchups
ABC REGION

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CBS REGION

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NBC REGION

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The first round polls will stay open for one week. Remember to tell all of your friends to vote as well!

I'm not embarrassed to say that my favorite television show of all-time is The O.C. I live by the motto "you can't fight fate!" More importantly, I watch WAY too much television, but I do so for the benefit of everyone reading this now. So to my mom and my wife, I say thanks for reading! To everyone else that might stumble across this, remember TiVo should be your best friend!