Super Bowl Most Watched TV Show Ever

Sunday’s Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts was watched by more than 106 million people, surpassing the 1983 finale of “M-A-S-H” to become the most-watched program in television history. Nielsen estimated that 106.5 million people watched the Saints upset the Colts. The “M-A-S-H” finale had 105.97 million viewers, but it was in an era when there were fewer TV sets. The game also broke the previous record viewership for a Super Bowl – last year’s game between Arizona and Pittsburgh, in which 98.7 million people watched. This year’s game also set a record with nearly 48 minutes of commercials – the most for any Super Bowl. Kantar Media says the amount of ads that aired on CBS was nearly 3 minutes longer than last year’s total, the previous record holder. Commercials typically come in 30-second blocks – which sold this year for between $2.5 million and $3 million. But Kantar says seven of this year’s 66 ads were just 15 seconds long, the most since 2002.