Super Bowl 50’s 111.9 Million Viewers Down 2 Percent From Last Year’s Record High

Streaming nabbed nearly 4 million fans

Denver Broncos Super Bowl 50

Super Bowl 50 hauled in 111.9 million total viewers for CBS on Sunday, which was down 2.2 percent from the prior year’s record high.

Last season, the New England Patriots victory nabbed 114.4 million overall audience members on NBC. That game had the benefits of a better major market and more of a nail-biter on the field. Plus, streaming — an advancing option for this year that brought in 3.96 million viewers — does not get counted among Nielsen’s linear stats.

Actually, even 2014’s total of 112.2 million viewers was better — that was a Super Bowl Denver lost. Yesterday’s game — one where they won — settled for the bronze medal historically, becoming the third most-watched event in television history.

Last night’s Super Bowl peaked with an average of 115.5 million viewers from 8:30 to 9 p.m. ET.

You can read about this morning’s initial overnight Nielsen data here. By that count, it was 1.4 percent shy of last year’s game but still better than the Seattle Seahawks’ victory from two years ago.

And here are last night’s fast national numbers, for those who simply can’t wade far enough into the Nielsen weeds if they tried.

On Twitter, Super Bowl 50 was the biggest event of 2016 to date. Sorry, “Grease: Live.”

After the big game, Stephen Colbert‘s “Late Show” attracted 21.12 million viewers — the most ever for the long running late-night series. It also earned the show’s best rating in the 18-49 demographic since the 1993 series premiere under David Letterman.

Later, James Corden‘s “Late Late Show” averaged 4.97 million total viewers — the most since that show’s inception in 1995.

In 2013, Craig Ferguson‘s “Late Late Show” followed the Super Bowl, pulling in 4.26 million audience members.

The AFC Champion Broncos defeated the NFC’s Carolina Panthers on Sunday, 24-10. Denver defensive stud Von Miller won the MVP honors, and Peyton Manning was happy to share the postgame podium with his teammate.

After the final football game of the 2015-2016 NFL season concluded, Manning punted on the question of retirement, explaining that he didn’t want to make an emotional decision on a professional topic.

To onlookers, it has appeared for a while that Manning doesn’t physically have much left in the tank. With two rings, Peyton now ties his younger brother Eli Manning, who quarterbacks the New York Giants.

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