Ratings Roundup: Super Bowl LV Notches 96.4 Million Total Viewers; Becomes Third Most-Watched Super Bowl in Canada With 8.8 Million Viewers

Ratings Roundup: Super Bowl LV Notches 96.4 Million Total Viewers; Becomes Third Most-Watched Super Bowl in Canada With 8.8 Million Viewers By SVG Staff

Friday, February 12, 2021 - 6:45 am

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Ratings roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, Super Bowl LV hits a total audience o f 96.4 million viewers and 8.8 million in Canada, UConn's overtime thriller on Fox Sports 1 does damage, and more.

Numbers From Super Bowl LV CBS Sports' coverage of Super Bowl LV, which featured the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' lopsided victory (31-9) over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Feb. 7 (6:38-10:17 PM, ET), posted a Total Audience Delivery of 96.4 million viewers across all platforms, including the CBS Television Network, CBS Sports and NFL digital properties, Buccaneers and Chiefs mobile properties, Verizon Media mobile properties and ESPN Deportes television and digital properties.

Despite a 22-point margin of victory - the second-largest for a Super Bowl in the past 18 years - viewers consumed Super Bowl LV across multiple platforms, including record numbers on digital.

Super Bowl LV was the most live-streamed NFL game ever. The average minute audience of 5.7 million viewers was the highest average minute audience for any NFL game and was up 65% vs. last year's Super Bowl. Super Bowl LV also became the first NFL game in history to deliver more than one billion total streaming minutes.

Super Bowl Sunday delivered a record-breaking day on CBS All Access in terms of new subscriber sign-ups, unique devices, streams and time spent.

Kansas City led all metered markets with a 59.9 HH rating, the highest rating ever for a Super Bowl in that market, up 8% vs. the Chiefs' victory last year. Boston tuned in to watch former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, ranking second with a 57.6 HH rating, the second-best rating ever for a Super Bowl in that market, surpassing all but one of the Patriots' Super Bowls (2015). Tampa was third with a 52.3 HH rating, the second-best rating for a Super Bowl in that market (2003).

CBS Sports social media accounts saw tremendous engagement growth on Super Bowl Sunday, driving an increase of 31% over 2019 when CBS last had the game (Super Bowl LIII).

Super Bowl LV generated more than 127 billion potential impressions on social media on Sunday. (CBS Sports)

On the digital side, CBS Sports HQ set new viewership records for its round-the-clock news, interviews, and picks-focused coverage on Sunday and throughout the week from Tampa. CBS Sports HQ set a single-day record with 3.5 million unique viewers on Sunday, February 7, beating its prior record of 1.2 million viewers on February 3, 2019. CBS Sports HQ also set a new single-day record for time spent with 105 million total streaming minutes on Monday, February 8. (CBS Sports)

In an additional digital note, Super Bowl Sunday was a standout day for Bleacher Report led by a record-breaking performance for its football vertical, B/R Gridiron, which maintained its position as the most engaged football account across digital media on NFL Sundays this season. The Big Game vaulted B/R Gridiron to its most-engaged day of all-time with more than 2.6M engagements (up 72% YoY) leading all competition on Instagram. This single day high comes on the heels of a milestone January for the two-year-old brand marked by 31 Million total engagements, 60K engagements per post, and 2.1 Million cross-platform video views.

Super Bowl LV also fueled the second best single day for the Bleacher Report account across social with more than 11.7 Million engagements the most since the 2020 NBA Finals. The B/R Betting vertical experienced a 3x increase in engagements compared to the 2020 Super Bowl with more than 655K likes, comments or shares of content and more than 1.7 Million cross-platform views the most viewed day ever for video content on B/R Betting channels. Finally, the B/R app a 39% YoY in engagements and an increase in average time spent on Sunday that topped 9 minutes per user a 12% increase from Super Bowl LIV.

North of the border,the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' victory in Super Bowl LV is the third-most-watched Super Bowl ever in Canada, attracting an average audience of 8.8 million viewers on CTV, TSN, and RDS, according to preliminary data from Numeris. The game attracted significant engagement across the networks' digital platforms, with Super Bowl live streaming on CTV, TSN, and RDS growing by 108% compared to last year.

17.6 million unique Canadian viewers, accounting for 47% of Canada's population, tuned in to watch some part of the NFL's iconic championship game. Audiences peaked at 11 million viewers at 8:38 p.m. ET during the Pepsi Super Bowl LV Halftime Show headlined by Canadian superstar The Weeknd.

Super Bowl LV ranks as Canada's most-watched broadcast of the 2020/21 broadcast season. CTV and TSN were the first and second most-watched networks in Canada on Sunday.

In the coveted post-game timeslot, the premiere of CTV's highly-anticipated new series HOLMES FAMILY EFFECT attracted an average audience of 918,000 viewers and was the third-biggest overnight debut of the current broadcast year among A25-54, and the biggest debut for a Canadian series since CTV's TRANSPLANT in 2020.

Always a can't-miss TV event of the year, we're very proud to see Super Bowl LV go into the record books as the third-biggest ever in Canada, said Stewart Johnston, Senior Vice President, Sales & Sports, Bell Media. Bell Media joined a multitude of advertising clients in leveraging the biggest audiences of the year to showcase our original programming, including the debut of Canada's latest hit original series HOLMES FAMILY EFFECT, which debut

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