The Viewership of Ginormous Proportions
First, the SI cover that'll be out in the upcoming issue:
And a bit of clarification on the numbers thrown around like a Mrs. Frisbee pie tin about the audience for Sunday's Super Bowl:
-- The 97.5 million figure is the record-number attached to viewership of Fox's coverage -- that's the average number of households it reached, not total people. The previous record was 94.1 million in the '96 Super Bowl XXX (Dallas-Pittsburgh).
The more interesting number is that Nielsen estimates the game had a total audience of 148.3 million viewers watching all or part of the game -- which is a Super Bowl record, passing the '04 Super Bowl XXXVIII game (New England-Carolina). Remember, ratings don't measure who's watching in a bar, restaurant or dorm room. And the fact people gather at other people's houses to watch also skews the number -- a Nielsen family could leave their house to watch it at someone else's home but not be registered by the tabulation.
While it's true the Feb. 28, '83 episode of "M*A*S*H" is the only show in TV history with more home viewership -- 106 million -- it did so with a 60.2 rating and 77 share. No other show in history has even got as high as a 53.3 rating.
Sunday's Super Bowl XLII had a rating of 43.2, but it's only a slight jump from last year's Indianapolis-Chicago telecast (42.6). The reason it has more viewers is simple math: More people in the U.S. represent a rating point today than at any other time in history.
The peak of Sunday's audience was from 9:30 to 10 p.m. ET/6:30 to 7 p.m. PT -- 105.7 million. That's the most-watched portion of a Super Bowl ever. And that alone almost matched the "M*A*S*H" final audience. At the start of the game, Super Bowl XLII had a 39.4 rating (6:31-7 p.m. ET/3:31-4 p.m.)
As for that pregame show, Fox did a 10.8 rating and had 20.1 million viewers, better than a year ago on CBS (10.2) and better than what Fox did for its last Super Bowl pregame (10.1 in '05).
Fox got an 11 percent increase in pregame show audience from men 18-49 (9.3 vs. 8.4 a year ago) and a 16 percent increase in women viewers 18-49 (6.4 vs. 5.5).
Boston (55.6 and a phenominal 81 share) was the best city rating. New York did a 44.9/67. Phoenix had a 47.0/72.
==The NFL Network will replay the game in a 90-minute format beginning Wednesday (5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.), and including Thursday (10 a.m. and 2 p.m.), Saturday (1:30 p.m. and 6 p.m.) and Sunday (8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.)