Super Bowl XLV averages record-breaking 111 million viewers

It’s official: According to preliminary Nielsen results, Sunday (Feb. 6) night’s Super Bowl broadcast was the most watched television program of all time.
FOX’s Super Bowl XLV telecast averaged a whopping 111 million viewers, beating out the 106.48 million viewers who tuned in for last year’s Super Bowl telecast.
Green Bay’s victory over Pittsburgh wasn’t the sort of epic piece of TV history redefinition that occurred when last year’s game finally unseated the 1983 “M*A*S*H*” finale from the record books, but at least it was a comfortable trouncing. [We’ll leave out the growth in the number of American Households and American TVs since 1983.]
In addition, FOX is boasting that “Glee” averaged 26.8 million viewers in its post-Super Bowl airing, exceeding the audience drawn by “The Office” in its airing after the 2009 Super Bowl. “Glee” averaged an 11.1 rating among adults 18-49. Guess what? Not surprisingly, “Glee” broke series ratings in both measures.
The Super Bowl and “Glee” aired in different night-parts depending on your time zone, but FOX claims the honor of being the first network to ever exceed 100 million viewers for a night in primetime, with 100.9 million.
The record-breaking night also allowed FOX to take over as TV’s top network for the season in the coveted 18-49 demographic, now averaging a 3.4 rating for the season, bettering CBS’ 3.0 rating.
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