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Tuesday, February 5, 2008

TV Hot Spot: News





Super Ratings: Record Audience Watches Giants Upset Pats!



Post by: Sal


Source: Zap2It

The New England Patriots may not have achieved perfection on Sunday (Feb. 3) night, but you won't hear FOX complaining.

Super Bowl XLII, which saw the New York Giants score one of the biggest upsets in football history over the heavily favored Pats, averaged 97.5 million viewers. Assuming those Fast Nation Nielsen figures hold, that would make it the most watched Super Bowl in history and the second most-watched program in TV history.

The 97.5 million figure shattered the audience of 94.1 million who watched NBC's telecast of Super Bowl XXX in 1996, a game that featured the Cowboys and Steelers. Chock up another win for Giants QB Eli Manning, whose Super Bowl easily out-rated last year's victory for the Indianapolis Colts -- quarterbacked by Manning's brother Peyton -- which averaged just over 93 million.

Super Bowl XLII will sit in the record books behind only the finale of "M*A*S*H*," which hooked an average audience of 106 million viewers in 1983.

The telecast's total audience -- a figure including all of the people who happened upon the game at any point -- was 148.3 million, topping the 2004 game in which 144.4 million saw at least part of the Patriots' narrow victory over the Panthers.

If you include the "House" episode that aired after the game, FOX's Sunday night did a 39.9 rating/60 share overall and a 34.8 rating in the 18-49 demo, making it the best evening in the network's history. Throw in two "American Idol"-fueled nights and FOX averaged a 12.9 rating in the 18-49 demo for the week, but best one-week demo total in the network's history and the best for any network since 1996.

And thanks to the Super Bowl, FOX's season-to-date lead in the 18-49 demo is suddenly up to 9/10ths of a ratings point, the largest advantage any network has had through Super Bowl Sunday in a decade.

Whew. That's a lot of statistics.

Want some more?

In Boston, the game did a 55.6 local rating and a 81 share. New York had a much-less-impressive 44.9/67 locally.

The post-game "House" did a 12.8 rating in the 18-49 demo and did a 15.7/27 overall. Last year's post-Super Bowl "Criminal Minds" did a 9.9 in the 18-49 demo.


Take Care,

Sal

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