SUPER NIGHT FOR ABC: Nearly 46 million households, or 62 percent of the people watching TV the night of Feb. 5, were tuned to ABC’s Super Bowl game broadcast. It was the highest-rated Super Bowl since 2000. By comparison, CBS led the night for non-NFL programing during the game window, with 5.27 million households for “Cold Case” and 4.53 million households for “Criminal Minds.”
TOP 10 NETWORK SPORTS TELECASTS
| Rank | Net | Program | Date | Rating | Share | Households
Watching
(000s) |
| 1 | ABC | SUPER BOWL XL: SEATTLE VS. PITTSBURGH | 2/5 | 41.5 | 62 | 45,734 |
| 2 | ABC | SUPER BOWL POSTGame COVERAGE (10:05 P.M. ET) | 2/5 | 34.5 | 51 | 38,017 |
| 3 | ABC | SUPER BOWL PREKICK COVERAGE, PART 2 (6:19 P.M. ET) | 2/5 | 33.2 | 56 | 36,532 |
| 4 | ABC | SUPER BOWL POSTGAME (10:10 P.M. ET) | 2/5 | 28.9 | 44 | 31,889 |
| 5 | ABC | SUPER BOWL PREKICK COVERAGE, PART 1 (5:54 P.M. ET) | 2/5 | 26.5 | 47 | 29,240 |
| 6 | ABC | SUPER BOWL PREGAME (5:30 P.M. ET) | 2/5 | 15.4 | 29 | 17,018 |
| 7 | ABC | SUPER BOWL PREGAME (5:03 P.M. ET) | 2/5 | 11.8 | 23 | 13,041 |
| 8 | ABC | SUPER BOWL PREGAME (4:30 P.M. ET) | 2/5 | 8.4 | 17 | 9,213 |
| 9 | ABC | SUPER BOWL PREGAME (3:59 P.M. ET) | 2/5 | 7.3 | 15 | 8,011 |
| 10 | ABC | SUPER BOWL PREGAME (3:25 P.M. ET) | 2/5 | 5.9 | 13 | 6,541 |
ESPN FEATURES ACC, SEC: More than 1.7 million households watched ESPN’s Duke-Boston College game on Feb. 1, down 10.2 percent from last year’s comparable Duke-Wake Forest game. ESPN2’s Kentucky-Florida matchup on Feb. 4 brought that net’s largest college hoops audience of the season to date: 1.15 million households. Leading all sports cable offerings for the week, however, was ESPN’s six-hour “NFL Countdown” before the Super Bowl.
TOP 10 CABLE SPORTS TELECASTS
| Rank | Net | Program | Date | Rating | Share | Households Watching (000s) |
| National | Cov.
Area |
| 1 | ESPN | NFL COUNTDOWN | 2/5 | 1.9 | 2.4 | 5 | 2,149 |
| 2 | ESPN | NCAA BASKETBALL: DUKE-BOSTON COLLEGE | 2/1 | 1.6 | 1.9 | 3 | 1,729 |
| 3 | ESPN | NFL PRIME TIME | 2/5 | 1.4 | 1.7 | 3 | 1,563 |
| 4 | ESPN | SPORTSCENTER LATE | 2/5 | 1.3 | 1.6 | 3 | 1,422 |
| 5 | TNT | NBA: CLEVELAND-MIAMI | 2/2 | 1.2 | 1.5 | 2 | 1,348 |
| 6 | ESPN2 | NCAA BASKETBALL: KENTUCKY-FLORIDA | 2/4 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 2 | 1,151 |
| 7 | ESPN | SPORTSCENTER LATE | 2/1 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 3 | 1,136 |
| 8 | ESPN | NCAA BASKETBALL: NORTH CAROLINA-MARYLAND | 2/2 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 2 | 1,131 |
| 9 | ESPN | NCAA BASKETBALL: NOTRE DAME-LOUISVILLE | 2/4 | 1.0 | 1.2 | 3 | 1,064 |
| 10 | ESPN | PARDON THE INTERRUPTION | 1/30 | 1.0 | 1.2 | 2 | 1,056 |
Rating — Estimated percent of all TV households of persons tuned to a specific program source. One ratings point equals 1,102,000 homes.
Share — Estimated percent of all households using television at that time which are tuned to a specific program source.
Source: Nielsen Media Research
