Super Bowl LII may have been down from last year, but its lead-out program was way, way up.
With a 16.2 rating in metered-market households, “This Is Us” scored the highest post-Super Bowl TV rating in six years, per early Nielsen numbers. The special Sunday episode’s numbers were 59 percent higher than last year’s premiere of “24: Legacy.”
The last post-Super Bowl telecast to grab a better rating was NBC’s “The Voice” in 2012, which scored a 20.0 in the metered markets.
The number is not just a record for the special time slot (“This Is Us” ran from 10:45 -11:49 p.m.), but the NBC family drama itself, which rose 80 percent over the show’s previous record of a 9.0 rating for the Season 1 finale last March. The special installment also jumped 128 percent over “This Is Us” Season 2 average (7.1).
Following the dramatic episode, the cast appeared on a post-Super Bowl edition of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” which posted a 5.7 rating in metered-market households from 12:24-1:35 a.m. ET. Sunday’s show was the third highest-rated telecast for the Fallon-led late-night program and moved ahead of its last post-Super Bowl installment in 2015 (5.5 rating).
Check back with TheWrap later on Monday, when final figures for the night are released.
The next new episode of “This Is Us” airs Tuesday at 9/8c on NBC.