Super Bowl LVII was watched by 115.1 million viewers — not 113 million, as previously reported — in response to a statement by Fox Sports. The figure spans viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and digital streaming services.
“This revision is the product of an intensive review by Nielsen that exposed irregularities within the encoding that permits Nielsen’s measurement of TV viewing in addition to issues with the out-of-home measurement of Super Bowl LVII,” per the statement.
The revised figure makes February’s game the most-watched Super Bowl in history, ahead of Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, which was viewed by 114.4 million people. With the addition of greater than 2 million viewers, Super Bowl viewership was up 2% over last 12 months’s game (112.3 million).
The recent figure can also be closer to the audience estimated by Nielsen competitor iSpot, which in February said that game drew a mean minute TV audience of roughly 118.2 million viewers. The game notched greater than 5 billion ad impressions in the course of the game, with 64.1% of all TV ad deliveries on the day airing on Fox and Fox Deportes, per iSpot data shared with Marketing Dive.
“We strive to fulfill the best standards for transparency and accuracy in audience measurement,” Nielsen said in a press release emailed to Marketing Dive. “We appreciate the support and collaboration from our partners at FOX and the NFL to correct previously unknown errors to ultimately provide a more accurate measure for this 12 months’s total audience for the sport.”
The news comes as Nielsen last month regained Media Rating Council accreditation for its National TV Audience Measurement service. The measurement watchdog suspended Nielsen’s accreditation in September 2021 after it had undercounted TV viewership. Despite regaining accreditation, Nielsen remains to be within the crosshairs of varied industry players that proceed to push for alternative measurement currencies this upfront season.
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