Overnight TV Ratings for Super Bowl Considerably Lower Than Last Year

Early indications are Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the Washington Redskins and Denver Broncos drew considerably fewer viewers than last year’s game between the Broncos and New York Giants.

This year’s Super Bowl drew an overnight Nielsen rating of 41.4 with a 60% share of the audience. Last year, the overnight rating was 47.9 and the share was 68. The national rating, the one that really counts, was 45.8.

An overnight rating is the average for the nation’s 15 largest markets.

This year’s game drew the highest rating in Denver--a 57.9 with an 87 share. In Washington, the rating was a 55.2 with a 78 share.

In Los Angeles, the rating was 42.8. Breaking it down into quarter hours, the audience was largest during the decisive second quarter, drawing a 43.3 in Los Angeles. By the end of the game, the rating had dropped to 37.8.

No San Diego ratings are available because that market is not among the 15 largest in the country.

The highest national rating ever for a Super Bowl was a 49.1 for Cincinnati and San Francisco in 1982. The share that year was a 73.

Second highest rating was a 48.6 for Washington and Miami in 1983, and next is a 48.3 for Chicago and New England in 1986.