Super Bowl 55 Ratings Fall 15% to 96.4 Million Multiplatform Viewers

CBS had been hoping that Super Bowl 55 would be a down-to-the-wire nail-biter between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs. Instead, the game turned out to be a lopsided victory for the Buccaneers—which resulted in the smallest overall Super Bowl audience in 14 years. Super Bowl 55 was seen by 96.4 million people—including out-of-home viewers—across all platforms, including CBS, CBS Sports and NFL digital properties, Verizon Media mobile properties, and ESPN Deportes TV and digital properties. That’s a 15% drop from last year’s 113.4 million audience for Super Bowl 54 on Fox, according to Nielsen. The measurement company released the viewer data Tuesday morning, an unprecedented delay following a Super Bowl. Nielsen said the 96.4 million number could increase as digital in TV ratings (DTVR) are added. The game, in which the Buccaneers beat the Chiefs 31-9, ranks as the most livestreamed NFL game to date, with an average minute audience of 5.7 million viewers—up 65% from last year’s Super Bowl. According to Nielsen, the average CBS linear audience was 92 million—the lowest since 2006, when 90.7 million watched on ABC as the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks. And overall, this was the smallest Super Bowl audience since 2007, when 93.2 million watched the Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears on CBS. Last year’s game on Fox drew 100.4 million linear viewers. When CBS last aired the game in 2019, a linear audience of 98.2 million watched Super Bowl 53, marking the first time that number had fallen below 100 million since 2009. New drama The Equalizer, which CBS picked to premiere after the Super Bowl, averaged 20.4 million viewers and a 5.1 rating in the adults 18-49 demo. That’s off 14% in total viewers and 27% in the demo compared to The Masked Singer’s Season 3 premiere after last year’s Super Bowl. This demonstrates, once again, the challenge of launching a new show in the coveted post-game slot. CBS said Super Bowl Sunday resulted in a record-breaking day for CBS All Access in several categories: new subscriber signups, number of streams, number of unique devices used and time spent streaming. 2020’s game had been the first year-over-year Super Bowl linear ratings increase since NBC’s telecast in 2015. That still remains the Super Bowl linear record, averaging 114.4 million total viewers. A not-so-competitive championship Given the appealing quarterback matchup between the Buccaneers’ Tom Brady and the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes—“as a football fan, this is as good as it gets,” game analyst Tony Romo told reporters ahead of the matchup—CBS was hoping for a competitive, exciting game, similar to the Chiefs’ thrilling come-from-behind victory over the San Francisco 49ers in last year’s Super Bowl. But the Chiefs never seemed to be a legitimate threat in the game—the team didn’t even score a touchdown—and the score grew increasingly lopsided. That likely led viewers to tune out early. The linear decline also isn’t surprising given the increase in cord-cutting during the pandemic. That’s why connected TV platforms had prepared for what they expected to be the most streamed TV event ever. Given that Super Bowl ads do not have ratings guarantees, the low turnout will have no impact on CBS’ bottom line. Despite a public perception that brands were keeping their distance from this year’s game, CBS quietly sold out its ad inventory a week and a half before the Super Bowl—and a week earlier than usual. The network sold ads for as much as $5.5 million per 30-second spot, which was slightly below last year’s $5.6 million rate, but the network’s deals also required marketers to pay an additional $300,000 per spot to be included in the digital livestream. CBS is counting on the boost from Sunday’s Super Bowl to put its season back on track after its early months were disrupted by the pandemic. “The Super Bowl is really the kickoff of the second half of our season,” CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl told Adweek. 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.” CBS now passes the Super Bowl baton to NBC, which will air Super Bowl 56 on Sunday, Feb. 6, 2022. NBC will also broadcast the Beijing Winter Olympics which begin two days earlier, on Feb. 4, 2022. Read More: CBS Bets on The Equalizer to Beat Post-Super Bowl Programming Odds