The Super Bowl continued its reign of complete dominance of the television landscape Sunday night, as the Packers’ win over the Steelers drew the largest audience in the history of American television.
Super Bowl XLV earned a 46.0 fast-national rating and 111.010 million viewers on FOX Sunday night, up 2% in ratings and 4% in viewership from last year (NO/IND: 45.0, 106.476M, CBS), and up 10% and 11%, respectively, from 2009 (PIT/ARI: 42.0, 98.732M, NBC).
The Packers’ win ranks as the most-viewed program in the history of U.S. television, topping the previous record set by last year’s aforementioned Super Bowl.
For nearly 27 years, from February 1983 to February 2010, the top program in U.S. history was the series finale of M*A*S*H on CBS (105.970M). That show now ranks third.
This also marks the fourth straight year the Super Bowl has set a record-high in viewership. The first of those four record-setting games was Super Bowl XLII in February 2008, which drew 97.448 million viewers — approximately 13.5 million fewer viewers than this year’s game.
To put that in perspective, the 13.5 million viewers the Super Bowl has gained over the past three years is close to the average number of viewers per game for the 2010 World Series (14.3M).
In addition, this marks the sixth straight Super Bowl — and the ninth of the past ten — to have an increase in viewership. In the span of ten years, from 2001 to 2011, the Super Bowl has gained 26.7 million viewers, for an increase of 32%.
Not surprisingly, the Super Bowl towers over all other sporting events. Over the past year, the most-viewed non-NFL sporting event was the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics, which drew 32.641 million viewers.
The top NBA game of the past year drew just over 28 million viewers (BOS/LAL G7, ABC), the top college football game drew 27 million (AUB/ORE, ESPN), the top college basketball game drew 24 million (DUKE/BUTLER, CBS), and the top baseball game drew just 15.5 million (SF/TEX G5, FOX).
The 46.0 rating for Sunday’s game is tied as the highest for any Super Bowl since Super Bowl XX in the 1985-86 season (CHI/NE: 48.3, NBC), and the highest for any television program since coverage of the 1994 Winter Olympics earned a 48.5 on CBS.
Overall, the 46.0 is tied as the ninth-highest rating ever for a Super Bowl telecast (46 telecasts*).
At the peak of Sunday’s telecast (9:30-10 PM), the game averaged 49.2% of U.S. households and 117.2 million viewers.
* Super Bowl I was televised on two networks, CBS and NBC.
(FOX press release via TV By the Numbers; nielsenwire.com)
