Super Bowl 49 Most-Watched Show in US History with 114-120 Million Viewers

[BusSport]

To be fair, the overall viewership trend has been upwards for most of the past decade. Still:

TV by the Numbers: "Super Bowl XLIX is Most-Watched Show in U.S. Television History With 114.4 Million Viewers":

PHOENIX, Ariz. – Feb. 2, 2015 – Super Bowl XLIX on NBC, featuring the New England Patriots’ history-making comeback from 10 points behind in the fourth quarter to defeat the Seattle Seahawks 28-24, is the most-watched television program in U.S. history and the highest-rated Super Bowl in 30 seasons, according to fast national data released today by The Nielsen Company.

The game was seen by a record 114.4 million viewers (6:31-10:10 p.m. ET), topping by 2.2 million viewers last year’s Super Bowl XLVIII on FOX and is the biggest audience to watch a television program in U.S. history.

Variety: "Super Bowl on NBC Draws Record U.S. Television Audience":

In updated national estimates from Nielsen released Monday afternoon, Sunday’s Super Bowl on NBC set a U.S. television record with 114.4 million viewers — up 2.2 million from the previous high set last year with Seattle and Denver. The six most recent Super Bowl games now claim the top six spots on this list.

Viewership peaked with 120.8 million viewers from 9:45-10 p.m. ET when Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady three two touchdown passes to put the Patriots on top.

The Super Bowl halftime show fronted by Katy Perry was also the highest on record (118.5 million viewers), about 3 million more than last year’s Bruno Mars concert on Fox.

The social media numbers are even more dominant compared to past years:

In social media, more than 65 million people joined the conversation on Facebook worldwide during Super Bowl XLIV, with over 265 million interactions (posts, comments and likes). Last year’s game saw 50 million unique people talking about the event.

New York Times's "Another Viewership Record for Super Bowl":

NEW YORK — An estimated 114.4 million people watched New England's thrilling win over Seattle, making it the fifth time in six years that a Super Bowl game has set a record for the most-watched event in U.S. television history.

The viewership eclipses the 112.2 million who watched Seattle beat Denver in the 2014 game, the Nielsen company said. The game also set standards for social media and online.

"Right now the NFL and the Super Bowl are defying media gravity," Mark Lazarus, NBC Sports Group chairman, said on Monday. With the buildup involving the league's two top teams and a controversy over the inflation of footballs in the Patriots' conference championship, the game may have set another record even without the compelling finish, he said.

But that finish — a circus catch to put the Seahawks on the doorstep of a last-minute win and a game-saving interception by the Patriots' Malcolm Butler — kept viewers glued to the tube. An estimated 120.3 million people were watching during the last 10 minutes that the game was being shown, Nielsen said. Lazarus said there were likely even more viewers, because Nielsen doesn't count people watching in sports bars, for example.