Seven rapt as Super Bowl cleans up

NBC and the NFL are likely to be doing cartwheels in the end zone with Sunday’s Super Bowl delivering a whopping 112.3 million viewers across NBC, Telemundo, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, NFL Digital platforms and Yahoo Sports mobile properties. That’s a 16% lift in total audience data from the 2021 Super Bowl.

It was in fact the most-watched Super Bowl since the 114.4 million who tuned in to NBC for 2015’s game between the winning New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. The halftime show from rappers and hip-hoppers — featuring Dr Dre, Eminem, Mary J Blige, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar — was watched by just over 103 million, up 7% from 2021.

And from today, Network 10’s owners, ViacomCBS, are no more. The US parent is burying two of the most respected names in US media — especially CBS — in favour of another respected name, Paramount. The change was announced Tuesday via a statement sent to all employees. It’s a sign that the linear TV names — Viacom (MTV, Nickelodeon, etc) and CBS no longer hold as much sway. Paramount is the name of the company’s film studios, but more importantly the name of its streaming service, Paramount+ (which had 56 million mostly US subscribers at the end of December).

Seven won the night overall, though it was a tight competition with Nine. Nine’s Married at First Sight pulled in 1.12 million, and The Hundred With Andy Lee (505,000) beat Seven’s Winter Olympics coverage, though overall the games managed: night, 623,000; evening, 615,000; late, 525,000.

In breakfast, Today’s national audience dipped under 300,000 to 294,000 and the metro audience fell under 200,000 to 199,000. News Breakfast on the ABC lifted its metro audience to 201,000. One-off?

Network channel share: