NCAA basketball tournament ratings have been torpedoed by “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” as viewers are increasingly turning to cable news channels of war coverage.

NCAA ratings from last Thursday through Sunday are down an average 25 percent from the same period in 2002.

One look at the all-news cable ratings from the same Thursday-Sunday period gives some idea of what viewers have been watching instead of basketball.

Last Thursday, for instance, viewership on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNBC and CNN Headline News, combined, was up nearly 400 percent over typical viewership figures, according to Nielsen.

By Saturday, combined cable news viewership grew 521 percent and topped out at 638 percent on Sunday.