An early estimate of TV ratings for the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl victory over the Philadelphia Eagles showed a 2 percent dip from last year’s game.
The NFL championship game drew a 43.4 rating and 63 share on Fox in Nielsen Media Research’s overnight measurement of 56 big cities, down from last season’s 44.2 rating and 63 share for Patriots-Panthers.
But Fox said the early rating is up 2 percent from the average of the past five years.
A ratings point represents 1,096,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 109.6 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show, meaning 63 percent of TVs that were on were tuned to the game.
More precise measurements of the entire country were to be available later Monday.
Nielsen did not have immediate estimates on how many people watched the game, but it seems on a par with the last two years. Nielsen said 89.8 million people watched last year, and 88.6 million in 2003.
The host city Jacksonville, Fla. drew the highest rating of any major city, trailed by Philadelphia. Boston was third.
Credit: AP/Yahoo
