Super Bowl Rating Is Down

Maybe it was the cleaned-up ads. Or the lack of a “wardrobe malfunction.” Or perhaps people in other parts of the country were less than excited about watching two Northeastern teams slug it out.

Whatever the cause, viewership for Sunday’s Super Bowl XXXIX slipped to the lowest level in four years, according to preliminary figures available Monday from Nielsen Media Research (final data will be released today). An average of 86.1-million viewers tuned in to the telecast on Fox, down 4% from last year’s bowl on CBS, which became notorious for Janet Jackson’s breast-revealing halftime show. Fox estimated that 134 million viewers watched at least part of the game.

The slight drop-off puzzled some ad buyers because the game, in which the New England Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-21, remained close until the end. Super Bowls with lopsided scores sometimes deliver lower-than-expected ratings because many viewers lose interest and drift away long before the game ends.

Last year’s game, when the Patriots made a field goal in the final four seconds to beat the Carolina Panthers, 32-29, may have simply proved a tough act to follow.

“Last year’s game was even more exciting,” said Tim Spengler, executive vice president and director of national broadcast for Initiative, a New York-based media planning and buying agency. “Maybe that could possibly be the reason” this year’s game didn’t fare quite as well in the ratings.

Another possible cause of the decline: tame ads. After critics attacked some of last year’s commercials for dubious twists such as flatulent horses and crotch-biting dogs, bowl advertisers sought to avoid controversy this time around. Some critics suggested Monday that they might have gone too far in the other direction, producing ads that many found bland and unmemorable, at least by the outsized standards of the Super Bowl.

Spengler said this year’s game clearly lacked any breakout ads, but he added that that probably had little effect on ratings. “It would take an incredibly hyped Ad Bowl to pump a rating,” he said.

The most-watched Super Bowl was the 1996 outing on NBC, when the Dallas Cowboys beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-17. An average of 94.1 million viewers tuned in.

Even with the falloff, Sunday’s contest was well within the recent range for Super Bowls. Every matchup since 1992 has delivered at least 83 million viewers.

The broadcast also powered Fox to its most-watched night ever, with an average of 79.1 million viewers between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. After the postgame wrap-up concluded at 7:44 p.m., Fox ran a new episode of “The Simpsons” that spoofed the Jackson dust-up. The episode was the most-watched for the animated comedy (23.1 million viewers) since 1993. That was better than some ad buyers expected but below what CBS did last year with its post-bowl “Survivor: All-Stars” (33.5 million).