Last night’s Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos winning over the Carolina Panthers earned a 49.0/73 overnight household rating/share in Nielsen’s largest 56 markets., That’s down 1% versus last year’s 49.7 for New England-Seattle which set the record for overnight household rating, but was good enough for second-best overnight rating ever. Per CBS the game peaked with a 51.0/73 from 10:00-10:15p ET.
It’s risky to make predictions about what the final national viewership and household rating will be based on the metered market numbers…
Overnight Super Bowl ratings 2005-2016:
| Year | Network | Teams | Overnight Rating |
| 2016 | CBS | Panthers-Broncos | 49.0 |
| 2015 | NBC | Patriots-Seahawks | 49.7 |
|
2014
|
Fox
|
Seahawks-Broncos
|
47.6
|
|
2013
|
CBS
|
Ravens-49ers
|
48.1
|
|
2012
|
NBC
|
Giants-Patriots
|
47.8
|
|
2011
|
Fox
|
Packers-Steelers
|
47.9
|
|
2010
|
CBS
|
Saints-Colts
|
46.4
|
|
2009
|
NBC
|
Steelers-Cardinals
|
42.1
|
|
2008
|
Fox
|
Giants-Patriots
|
44.7
|
|
2007
|
CBS
|
Colts-Bears
|
42.0
|
|
2006
|
ABC
|
Steelers-Seahawks
|
42.1
|
|
2005
|
Fox
|
Patriots-Eagles
|
43.4
|
–
Here’s the list of final household rating and viewership numbers for past Super Bowls.
Overnight household rating = the live+same day DVR overnight metered-market household rating from the top 56 Nielsen television markets. The 56 markets (out of 210 total) account for about 70% of the US TV-viewing population. The overnight household rating is the percentage of the households that were tuned-in in those markets. The share is the percentage of the households that were watching TV at the time.
Example: a 21 household rating with a 40% share means that on average 21% of all the households (in those 56 markets) were tuned-in and that 40% of the households watching TV were tuned-in.