CBS Says 120 Million Watched Super Bowl, but Rating Is Low

The Super Bowl was seen by an estimated 120 million, CBS said Tuesday.

Ad buyers paid an average of $850,000 for 54 30-second units of time during Sunday’s game, giving CBS revenues of nearly $46 million from its commercial sponsors.

CBS said the A.C. Nielsen rating for the Super Bowl was 40.3 with a 61 share. Each rating point corresponds to about 921,000 homes. A rating is the percentage of all TV households in America, and a share is the percentage of televisions actually in use at the time.

Only the 1986 Super Bowl between the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots had a bigger audience, an estimated 127 million. The 1987 Super Bowl between the New York Giants and Denver Broncos also was seen by about 120 million.

While total viewership was high, the ratings figure itself was low. The 40.3 number was the second lowest since 1971, when the Baltimore Colt-Dallas Cowboy Super Bowl had a 39.9 rating on NBC. The only lower-rated game since then was in 1990, when CBS got a 39.0 for its broadcast of the San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos.

The rating for the half hour roughly corresponding to halftime was 32.8, indicating that at least some of CBS’ viewers switched to Fox’s live “In Living Color” halftime special. The show had a 13.4 rating, 18% better than the show’s average, CBS said.