Super Bowl XX Pulls a XLIII.III

An estimated 5,066,100 viewers in the Los Angeles television market watched part or all of Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots, according to the A. C. Nielsen Co.

The game drew a Nielsen rating of 43.3 here, with a 76% share of the audience. That means that the game was being watched in 43.3% of the 4.4 million TV households in the L.A. market, and that 76% of the people watching television at the time were watching the Super Bowl.

The game peaked around 3 p.m., drawing a 45.6 rating with an 80 share. The game began about 2:20.

The 43.3 is the lowest L.A. rating for a Super Bowl in five years. The highest during that period was a 49.0 with an 80 share for the Raiders and Washington Redskins two years ago. Last year’s game between the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins drew an L.A. rating of 44.8 with a 74 share.

In Chicago, Sunday’s game drew a 62.8 rating with an 87 share. National ratings will be announced later this week.