Super Bowl LVI was watched by 150 million people on TV and streaming platforms, according to iSpot.TV, a measurement company being used as an alternative to Nielsen by NBCUniversal.
The game had an average minute audience of 121 million viewers, with 56% of U.S. households watching all or some of the telecast on NBC, Telemundo and Peacock.
iSpot's average audience numbers beat Nielsen's calculation of an average audience of 101.1 million viewers. Last year’s game had an average audience of 91.6 million viewers on CBS, according to Nielsen. Adding in viewers on other platforms raised the Nielsen count of the game a year ago to 96.4 million.
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Linear viewership of Super Bowl LVI averaged 98.1 million viewers per minute, according to iSpot, with total in-home reach of 134.5 million on NBCU networks. NBC had 131.6 million viewers and Telemundo added 2.9 million viewers.
Streaming averaged 10.5 million viewers per minute, and 15.5 million total viewers. iSpot worked with Conviva to get sensor level data about connected TV, mobile and tablet consumption.
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The out-of-home average audience for the Super Bowl was 12.5 million, as measured by Tunity Analytics, another iSpot partner.
The average Super Bowl ad reached 106 million viewers. The game generated 4.39 billion verified household ad impressions across all platforms in 216 minutes.
Working with iSpot, NBC and its advertisers are getting data about the commercials that usually aren’t available for weeks.
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During the game, the commercial attention rate was 36% higher than the average across all networks and shows on Sunday. The commercial completion rate was 98.6%.
Viewership peaked during the halftime show featuring hip-hop legends Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem, getting a 12% bump.
Ads running during the halftime show generated an average audience of 116.8 million verified impressions for in-home viewing.
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The NFL’s animated two-minute commercial during the halftime show had the highest in-home audience, seen by 19 million viewers.
NBC is also broadcasting the Olympics and over the course of all of Sunday, NBCU-owned networks accounted for 69% of all household ad impressions for the day, iSpot.TV said.
Another data company, Samba TV, said that 36 million U.S. households watched the Super Bowl, up 12% from last year.
“In Q4 of 2021, every one of the top five television programs was an NFL game, and that momentum helped linear TV notch its first ratings increase since 2020,” said Cole Strain, head of measurement for Samba TV. “We saw that same momentum and excitement for the NFL carry over to this year’s match-up between the Rams and the Bengals, with the NFL continuing its ratings winning streak gaining Super Bowl viewership year over year by 12%, reaching 36 million households.”
Samba also found the game’s halftime show to be a big audience draw, watched by 29 million households, up 19% from last year.
“The powerhouse performances from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and 50 Cent rocked the ratings on Sunday night, shattering last year’s halftime audience drawing in millions of more viewers across both linear television and streaming,” said Strain. ■
