Super Bowl 50 television audience close to 2015 record, early data shows

Last year’s Super Bowl drew a record audience of 114.4 million viewers to become the most-watched telecast in USA history.

The year prior, Fox reported 1.1 million uniques for Super Bowl 48. However, the good news is that last night’s game topped the 2014 game (of the 2013/14 season), which managed 111.5 million viewers.

The final ratings for Super Bowl 50 are in, with an average of 111.9 million viewers tuning in to CBS to watch the Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 24-10. His attempt to win a second Super Bowl was the big story going into the game, but the Broncos’ defense was the reason for Manning getting it and all of its players and Broncos defensive coordinator Wade Phillips deserved more attention. That’s the third-lowest rating for a post-Super Bowl program in the last 25 years, only ahead of episodes of Elementary in 2013 and Alias in 2003.

Facebook-owned Instagram did well, too, saying that 38 million people had 155 million interactions on its service related to Super Bowl 50.

For both Twitter and Facebook, the moment of highest social media activity occurred in the minute after the halftime show featuring Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars. Lady Gaga nailed the national anthem all by herself.

Nielsen said 21.2 million stayed up to watch the special version of Steven Colbert’s “The Late Show” that aired after the game. The stream had just under 4 million unique visitors during the game.

For example, YouTube said that people spent 300,000 hours watching Super Bowl ads and teaser videos on its service during the game, and overall it saw almost 4 million hours of ads and teasers watched so far.

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