As the N.Y. Giants Piled Up Points, Super Bowl Lost Them in the Ratings

The national Nielsen rating for Sunday’s Super Bowl was a 45.8, CBS announced Tuesday.

Although that rating is lower than expected, it still makes the game the ninth-highest-rated Super Bowl of the 21 played.

The audience was estimated at 122.6 million, down from last year’s 127 million. A record viewing audience of 130 million had been predicted.

But because the New York Giants pulled away to a 39-20 victory over the Denver Broncos, the national rating dropped off toward the end of the telecast.

From 5 to 5:30 p.m., the rating was a 46.3, and it held at 46.2 for the next half-hour. But during the final two half hours of the telecast, when ratings normally increase, the ratings fell off to 45.8 and 44.7, respectively.

Two ratings that appeared in Tuesday’s Times sports section were incorrect. Actually, the New York rating for the Super Bowl was a 53.4, while the seventh game of last year’s World Series between the Mets and Boston Red Sox was a 56.0. Those figures were transposed in Tuesday’s story on overnight ratings.