No, dummy, Super Bowl LX ratings aren’t out yet. Nor has viewership been revealed for the halftime show.
That hasn’t stopped the clickbait from fringe social media news sources, however.
Even for the Super Bowl, Nielsen does not release full viewership numbers on Mondays. It is possible that a preliminary “fast national” number could be out today. However, that number would not include Nielsen’s expanded Big Data viewership, which adds viewership from additional smart TVs and streaming boxes. The final number will be out on Tuesday.
But even when the final number does come out, be wary of viral comparisons. Nielsen measures viewership using an “average minute audience.” When they say, for example, the Super Bowl halftime show drew 100 million viewers, that means throughout the halftime every minute saw 100 million unique viewers, on average. That is distinct from the way YouTube record viewers. On YouTube, you are counted as a view when you watch a video for 30 seconds. 10 million YouTube views cannot be compared to 10 million views on Nielsen.
That is not the only incorrect Super Bowl viewership comparison that might come out. Nielsen’s Super Bowl number is United States only. While football is much less global than soccer, it still has audiences throughout the world. Mexico has seen Super Bowl viewership near four million average viewers, while Canada can get over eight million.
Finally, beware of comparisons to reach. A show might have an average viewership of three million but a reach of 11 million. Clearly, those numbers should not be compared against each other.
No matter what the viewership for the Super Bowl ends up being, it will almost certainly be used incorrectly by those looking to push an agenda.
About Manny Soloway
Manny Soloway is a Iowa based writer focusing on TV ratings. He is also the founder of the TV Media Blog substack.