Super Bowl XLVIII wasn’t quite the nail bitter football fans wanted, but that didn’t stop a third of America from tuning in. The game earned a record number of viewers, which climbed when the final numbers were delivered on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Animal Planet’s 10th annual Puppy Bowl was also a huge hit, scoring the most viewers in that program’s history.
The early espitames for the Super Bowl put the total number of viewers at 111.5 million, but Nielsen said Tuesday that the number has been adjusted all the way up to 112.2 million. That still makes it the most-watched television show in U.S. history.
The game, which saw the Seattle Seahawks clobber the Denver Broncos, 46.7 household rating, making it the seventh highest-rated Super Bowl ever. It also earned a 69 percent share.
Meanwhile, Deadline is reporting that 13.5 million unique viewers tuned in to the Puppy Bowl throughout the day. Animal Planet aired it for 12 hours straight.
The first airing at 3 p.m. Sunday averaged 3.3 million viewers, which is up 24 percent over last year, making it the most-watched cable telecast of the day.
The Puppy Bowl also had a strong social media presence, scoring 340,000 Twitter mentions during the first telecast.
As previously reported, Downton Abbey also had a strong performance on PBS, despite airing during the game. The episode drew 6.8 million viewers, which was up from last year’s Super Bowl night episode.
So, maybe running a new show against the Super Bowl isn’t such a bad idea, after all.
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