After finding flaws in the way it tabulated the viewing of February’s Super Bowl, Nielsen has come up with a new figure for how many people watched the big game, and the new number makes Super Bowl LVII the most-watched Super Bowl ever.
Nielsen now says that 115.1 million viewers tuned in.
Originally, Nielsen said the Super Bowl, featuring the victorious Kansas City Chiefs beating Philadelphia, drew 113 million viewers, the most since 2017. It later upgraded that figure to 113.1 million viewers.
iSpot.TV, one of the measurement companies offering a big data alternative to Nielsen, calculated that the Super Bowl had 118.2 million viewers
“Fox Sports is proud to have presented the most-watched Super Bowl and most-watched TV show of all time," Fox said in a statement. “The revised Super Bowl viewership figure is the result of a thorough review by Nielsen that revealed irregularities in the encoding that enables Nielsen’s measurement of TV viewing as well as in the measurement of out-of-home viewing. We appreciate Nielsen’s commitment to producing the most accurate viewership figure possible.”
Nielsen has been frequently criticized for undercounting viewers. The Media Rating Council suspended its accreditation of Nielsen’s national TV audience measurement system because Nielsen was unable to manage its panel homes during the pandemic, resulting in incorrect viewer totals. Last month, the MRC restored the accreditation of Nielsen national panel-based service.
Measuring viewing of sporting events has become more difficult, with more viewers streaming games. Networks have also been pushing to have out-of-home viewing included in audience estimates.
“We strive to meet the highest standards for transparency and accuracy in audience measurement,” Nielsen said in a statement. "The Super Bowl continues to be a unique media event in terms of its size and diversity in how audiences watch the game. We appreciate the support and collaboration from our partners at Fox and the NFL to correct previously unknown errors to ultimately provide a more accurate measure for this year's total audience for the game."
