Super Bowl LX Viewership Revised, Still Falls Short of Record

Viewership numbers for Super Bowl LX were updated after Nielsen said Thursday that there was a prior data collection error.

The measurement agency said the “updated and final” viewership figure for the NFL title game on Feb. 8, won by the Seahawks over the Patriots, is an average of 125.6 million. That’s up slightly from the prior viewership average of 124.9 million that had been reported.

The revised figure, however, still leaves Super Bowl LX 1.6% behind last year’s viewership average of 127.7 million for Super Bowl LIX. NBC Sports, which showed this year’s game, had hopes of setting a new record for the most-watched, single-network broadcast in U.S. television history, though the network didn’t guarantee it. Seattle’s dominant victory, which included just three field goals in the first half, likely depressed viewership somewhat. 

Nielsen attributed the viewership revision to “a Big Data provider [that] did not properly collect data from its devices on Feb. 8, which impacted the Big Data + Panel count.” 

The game’s peak audience of 137.8 million in the second quarter, which wasn’t updated by Nielsen, is still an industry record. 

That enhanced methodology, officially introduced last September, brings in tens of millions of additional data points from set-top boxes and smart TVs. There have been some occasional operational issues as the new system has rolled out, though, and this was the first Super Bowl with Big Data + Panel.

Nielsen hasn’t yet disclosed the findings from a separate pilot test with an expanded co-viewing methodology conducted during Super Bowl LX. That won’t be part of an official viewership figure for Super Bowl LX, but the NFL in particular has been very interested in seeing Nielsen improve in this area.