CBS Counts on Super Bowl Boost to Put Season Back on Track After Covid Upheaval

CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus, reflecting on producing Super Bowl 55 in the middle of pandemic, recently told reporters that “America needs this Super Bowl.” Truth be told, so does CBS. The network, like all of its fellow broadcasters, has weathered significant ratings erosion in the early part of this season, as the pandemic accelerated cord-cutting, and caused production delays that postponed CBS’ biggest shows for months. “We’ve seen where we have originals, our audiences are pretty comparable to last season. The things really holding us back is not being able to have as many originals as we’ve had in previous years,” CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl told Adweek. “But all that should change in the coming months.” That’s why Super Bowl 55, which CBS broadcasts on Sunday, is so perfectly timed for the network. With around 100 million viewers expected to watch the game, CBS has a one-night-only opportunity to lure a mass audience back to its network—and convince them to stick around in the days and weeks to come, and watch its other shows. “The Super Bowl is really the kickoff of the second half of our season,” Kahl said. As the network returns to a more normal primetime schedule of originals, “coming out of the Super Bowl, we feel like we’re finally getting some wind in our sails.” A narrower promo focus And CBS’ in-game promos will be the network’s chance to put those shows in front of what is historically the year’s biggest TV audience. This is the first Super Bowl where CBS’ marketing is overseen by Mike Benson, president and CMO, following longtime CBS marketing chief George Schweitzer’s retirement last year. The network declined to make Benson available to discuss his approach to marketing this year’s game, and crafting CBS’ in-game promos. But Kahl said “there’s a narrower focus this year than we’ve had in the past,” when the network highlighted a large portion of its primetime schedule with its Super Bowl promos. Instead, CBS has devoted much of its allotted promo inventory to a trio of shows debuting on the network in the days after the game: its reboot of The Equalizer (starring Queen Latifah, which will premiere immediately following Super Bowl 55), Clarice (premiering next Thursday, it follows Silence of the Lambs’ Clarice Starling a year after the events of the 1991 film) and Season 2 of reality competition series Tough as Nails (“a very pleasant Season 1 surprise,” according to Kahl, it returns Wednesday). “You’ll see a real focus on those properties versus in the past, where we’ve sprinkled things around a little bit,” said Kahl. Another reason for CBS’ narrower focus this season: A significant chunk of its Super Bowl promo time will be devoted to spots for parent company ViacomCBS’ new streamer Paramount+, which launches in March. As Adweek reported earlier this week, ViacomCBS’ three-phase campaign for the streamer will conclude with a 60-second promo during the game as dozens of ViacomCBS characters and talent reach the top of the fictional Mount Paramount. Ratings rebound The Super Bowl should dramatically reverse CBS’ ratings slump this season. Season-to-date, the network is down 29% in total viewers (from 7.75 million to 5.52 million) and is off 18% in the 18-49 demo (from a 1.1 rating to a 0.9), according to Nielsen’s most current ratings. (ABC, NBC and Fox have similarly seen year-over-year declines between 8% and 41%—and won’t be able to count on a Super Bowl boost to propel it through the second half of the season.) Like his CBS Sports counterparts, Kahl is cautiously optimistic about the audience that Super Bowl 55 will draw, given the marquee quarterback matchup between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. “You've got maybe the best quarterback of all time [Brady] and then certainly the best young gun quarterback [Mahomes] going at it. It's a storyline with almost universal appeal. You don't have to be a huge football fan to be interested in watching that,” said Kahl. “So hopefully [it will be] a big game—and hopefully it translates well to [The] Equalizer, and later in the week to Tough as Nails and Clarice.” For all the latest Super Bowl advertising news—who’s in, who’s out, teasers, full ads and more—check out Adweek’s Super Bowl 2021 Ad Tracker and the rest of our stories about the Big Game. And join us on the evening of Feb. 7 for the best in-game coverage of the commercials anywhere.