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Salt Lake scores lowest ratings for Super Bowl: Ratings ? Highest-rated event in TV history drew a third of SLC homes(Salt Lake Tribune, The Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Feb. 3--Not everyone was glued to their TV sets during Super Bowl Sunday. In fact, a lot of Utahns opted out of watching what is being called the most-watched Super Bowl and television event of all time. Utah had the lowest ratings in the nation for Super Bowl XLIII, based on the 56 television markets monitored by Nielsen Media Research. There was a 7 percent drop in local viewership compared with how many watched 2008's game on Fox. Salt Lake City was followed by Houston, Austin, Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to NBC. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh; Norfolk, Va.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Buffalo and Richmond, Va., had the highest ratings for the game. Early figures show this was the most-watched TV event in history, beating out the 1983 finale of "M--A--S--H" and last year's Super Bowl XLII. An estimated 151.6 million viewers tuned in to either part or all of the Feb. 1 game. Salt Lake City posted a 34.1 rating for the whole game, according to KSL general manager Greg James, which ran the game from 4 to 8 p.m. The national average was a 42.1 rating. Ratings refer to the percentage of Utah's 919,390 television households that are watching a particular program. James said the lower-than-average viewership likely was because of the teams that competed. "While there was interest in the Super Bowl, the teams may not have sparked the interest in this market as they have before until the football got really good, and it got really good in that last half," he said. By the end of the game, when the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals in a thrilling 27-23 victory, viewership had jumped. Salt Lake City's perceived lack of interest in the Super Bowl is a far cry from the city's Olympic fever. Since the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Games, the Beehive capital has always been in the top five in cities with the highest ratings for the Olympics. To see more of The Salt Lake Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sltrib.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Salt Lake Tribune Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |