Super Bowl Telecast Sets U.S. TV Viewership Record For Third Consecutive Year

NBC earned a 47.0 fast-national Nielsen rating and 111.3 million viewers for the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl XLVI broadcast from 6:31-9:58pm ET, making the game the most-viewed program in U.S. television history. This marks the seventh straight year the Super Bowl has seen a growth in viewership and the third straight year the game has set a new U.S. viewership record. The game marks the sixth-highest rated Super Bowl ever, and best since Super Bowl XX in '86, and 12th highest-rated telecast in U.S. TV history. The series finale of “M.A.S.H.” in ’83 -- when the U.S. TV universe was around 83.3 million homes -- remains the highest-rated program ever with a 60.2 rating (106.0 million viewers). The ’12 Super Bowl was broadcast to an estimated 114.7 million U.S. TV homes. The highest-rated Super Bowl of all time remains the 49ers-Bengals matchup in ’82, which earned a 49.1 rating. This year’s Giants-Patriots matchup also earned the highest Super Bowl rating in the adults 18-49 demo in 15 years. The halftime show featuring Madonna averaged a 47.4 rating and 114.0 million viewers from 8:00-8:30pm, marking the most-viewed Super Bowl halftime show featuring entertainment ever (records dating back to '91). Following the game, the season premiere of “The Voice” on NBC earned an 18.4 rating and 37.6 million viewers, up 35% and 40%, respectively, from Fox’ episode of “Glee” following last year’s game (Austin Karp, THE DAILY).

MOST-VIEWED U.S. TV PROGRAMS
YEAR	PROGRAM	NET	RATING	VIEWERS (000)
'12	Super Bowl XLVI: Giants-Patriots	NBC	47.0	111,300
'11	Super Bowl XLV: Packers-Steelers	Fox	46.1	111,000
'10	Super Bowl XLIV: Saints-Colts	CBS	45.0	106,500
'83	"M.A.S.H." finale	CBS	60.2	106,000
'09	Super Bowl XLIII: Steelers-Cardinals	NBC	42.0	98,700

HIGHEST-RATED SUPER BOWLS
YEAR	SUPER BOWL	NET	RATING	VIEWERS (000)	MATCHUP
'82	XVI	CBS	49.1	85,240	49ers-Bengals
'83	XVII	NBC	48.6	81,770	Redskins-Dolphins
'86	XX	NBC	48.3	92,570	Bears-Patriots
'78	XII	CBS	47.2	78,940	Cowboys-Broncos
'79	XIII	NBC	47.1	74,740	Steelers-Cowboys
'12	XLVI	NBC	47.0	111,300	Giants-Patriots

PLAYING BY THEIR OWN RULES: DAILY VARIETY’s Rick Kissell noted the NFL “proved once again on Sunday that it's in a ratings league of its own.” The 111.3 million viewers is “more than the combined audience for the most recent deciding games of baseball's World Series (25.4 million), college football's BCS title game (24.2 million), basketball's NBA Finals (23.9 million), college basketball's NCAA men's championship (20.1 million) and hockey's Stanley Cup Finals (8.5 million)” (VARIETY.com, 2/6). In N.Y., Bob Raissman writes the league’s TV partners “have struck ratings gold with the Giants.” Add the fact the Giants play in the country’s largest media market and “are enrolled in the NFC East, the league’s most visible division, and you are talking about a force capable of pulling in significant numbers of viewers.” The Giants’ “ability to keep things close produces frantic, cliff-hanger television.” Raismann: “If they ever wanted to take this to higher ground, Giants suits would sign-on for an appearance on HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’” (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 2/7).

NOTHING LIKE THE FIRST TIME: In N.Y., Richard Sandomir writes Sunday’s game was Cris Collinsworth’s “first Super Bowl at NBC, and he continued to show why he has been a worthy successor to John Madden.” He and Al Michaels, “along with the producer Fred Gaudelli and the director Drew Esocoff, lead a terrific production team.” They handled “nearly everything well on Sunday.” Sandomir asks, “Were there any better shots than Giants tight end Jake Ballard collapsing on the sideline while trying to run after a knee injury, or the disconsolate Patriots owner, Robert K. Kraft, after the Patriots lost?” But Sandomir notes they “gave us just two seconds of Victor Cruz’s touchdown salsa dance.” Collinsworth also did not "describe what the Patriots’ offensive line, in particular Matt Light, was doing to contain the Giants’ Osi Umenyiora, who was barely mentioned all game” (N.Y. TIMES, 2/7).

NBC DECLARES STREAM A SUCCESS: In N.Y., Brian Stelter noted despite some user complaints about NBC’s live stream of the telecast online, the net “declared it to be a success on Monday and said it would report the total number of streams” today. The number of total streams is “likely to top one million.” As a milestone “for Internet distribution of video, it’s significant,” but it is “unlikely that the stream had any adverse effect on traditional television viewership.” NBC Sports Group Senior VP/Business Development Kevin Monaghan said, “Delivery is always our biggest concern, but it was not an issue. We were successfully serving our highest traffic at the end of the game. We’re also very pleased with the tablet experience and are betting we will see some interesting traffic and engagement numbers there as well.” Stelter noted some Web users said that they were “bothered by the lag time between the live stream and the real-life game -- a detriment if they were following along on Twitter or Facebook.” Monaghan said most of the complaints, which he called “isolated,” were due to “local connection issues” (NYTIMES.com, 2/6). Meanwhile, Bluefin Labs indicated that an analysis of social media activity surrounding the Super Bowl found that it was the “largest social media event for TV, with some 5.4 million ‘commentators’ posting some 12.2 million comments” (BROADCASTINGCABLE.com, 2/6).

UNLIKELY ALLIANCE: CABLEFAX DAILY notes the KRIS-NBC affiliate in Corpus Christi, Texas, “remained dark on Time Warner Cable for the Super Bowl.” However, TWC partnered with DirecTV to co-sponsor a Super Bowl party at two sports bars in Beeville, Texas, which is 60 miles from Corpus Christi (CABLEFAX DAILY, 2/7).

GROWING THE NORTHERN AUDIENCE: The AP’s David Bauder noted a “record 8.1 million Canadian viewers tuned into Sunday’s Super Bowl.” More than 18 million viewers in Canada "watched at least some of the game, which was broadcast on CTV in English and on RDS in French.” The 12% increase “over last year’s audience makes the Super Bowl the most-watched program of the broadcast year.” Audience levels for CTV and RDS “peaked at nearly 11 million viewers during the highly-anticipated halftime show featuring Madonna” (AP, 2/6).