TV Ratings: Super Bowl LVIII Viewing Numbers Up

Early viewing numbers for Super Bowl LVIII indicate that about 39 million viewers tuned into the big game, up 6% from the 2023 Super Bowl.

TV Technology reports the early numbers from the game, in which the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime, are from researcher Samba TV which just tracked the TV broadcast. According to Nielsen's final numbers, the 2023 Super Bowl matchup between the Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles drew an average of 115.1 million viewers across all platforms.

Nevertheless, Samba's figures represent the highest Super Bowl TV viewership in the past six years and the third most viewed of all time. Usher and co.’s halftime show attracted 30.1 million households, up 5% from Rhianna’s 2023 event. The audience for the game skewed towards white households—5% compared to the U.S. overall— and older baby boomers (65-74), 6% compared to the U.S. overall.

The most viewed commercials, all attracting 29.1 million viewers, were for Poppi, an upscale next generation soda, the first Verizon commercial (featuring Tony Hale and lemons, although the company’s second ad featuring Beyonce had far more impact), and an ad from Snapchat.

“There were several factors driving unprecedented buzz for the big game, from the record-breaking ad spend to the Taylor Swift effect," said Ashwin Navin, Co-Founder and CEO of Samba TV. "Following Apple Music’s first successful halftime show last year, it found success with fans yet again with an impressive 30.1 million viewers, exceeding last year’s Rhianna-led show Overall, the halftime show drew in 5% more viewers than last year.”

All was not so well on the streaming end, with numerous fans voicing their frustration over buffering and dropout issues with Paramount+, which carried the game live. Promising 4K HDR is one thing, delivering it is another and whether or not that demand for higher bandwidth was the culprit, the streaming service came up short according to the Twitterverse