With ratings, share and viewership numbers rolling in, Super Bowl XLV has reached some expected milestones -- including most-watch TV program in U.S. history.
With 162.9 million viewers, the game surpassed last year's then-record of 153.4.
Also, 87 percent of televisions in Pittsburgh were tuned to the game, as were 85 percent in Milwaukee.
Host city Dallas set a record as as well. Eighty percent of the TVs there were tuned to the game, the most ever for a host city. (Of course, after the weather of the week many of the locals probably felt snowbound and just stayed inside. Plus, they have good football fans in Big D.)
With the U.S. population having swelled through the years, the viewership number should be among the highest -- just because there are more people around to watch the season-ending game than there was 20 years ago.
Conversely, the rating was huge by current standards, a 46.0, and still fell short of the eight highest-rated Super Bowls, all of which pulled at least 46.4s. None of those has happened in the past quarter century, though, since the nearly pre-cable, three-channel (plus PBS) world that a majority of viewers these days know nothing about.
So in many ways the Super Bowl -- and the entire weekend (at least in terms of what people watching at home saw) was a winner.
Here's a recap, initially published in the Altoona Mirror on Monday and then updated below that).
From the Mirror ...
More accurately, it was a good broadcast of the most meaningful, most-watched football game of the season.
Fox Sports, which covered the action, followed the storylines and had the shots, did a good job. It was a fairly flawless football broadcast, except for a few early replays that drew an audible response from fans in the stands but were not shown on TV.
While the Steelers had three turnovers, the Fox Sports team (led by producer Richie Zyontz and director Rich Russo, a Penn State graduate) never fumbled.
Before the game Russo promised a football-first approach—and that’s what viewers got.
Play-by-play man Joe Buck was measured and steady. He let the action on the screen talk and, thankfully, did not offer an opinion on the action—a mistake many of his contemporaries make with regularity. Buck simply stuck to his role describing the action.
Similarly, color commentator Troy Aikman did not try to impress people by talking. He picked his spots and shared the right information at the right time.
During the Packers’ late-game drive, when receiver Greg Jennings caught his second big pass on a post-pattern, Aikman said Steelers coach Mike Tomlin had expected that and told the broadcast team as much earlier in the week.
“He told his quarterbacks to throw that post pass every time they could in practice,” Simms said. “Because he knew they were going to get that matchup with Jennings, and he was worried. Now the Packers have made two big plays on that pass.”
In addition, TV’s best on-air addition in years, former NFL vice president of officiating Mike Pereira, stood out by simply doing his job and doing it well.
Pereira correctly opined on the only replay challenge of the game, which came with 25 seconds remaining in the third quarter. When Green Bay challenged a play that was ruled an incomplete pass on the field, Pereira said, “to me that’s a bang-bang incomplete pass.”
A minute or so later, after a seemingly long delay for the review, the officials on the field agreed.
In addition to the sounds, Fox Sports had all the shots, including injured players from both teams leaving the field, the only almost-bad snap between Steelers quarterback and backup center Doug Legursky and Rashard Mendenhall’s fourth-quarter fumble, which led to Green Bay’s third touchdown off a Pittsburgh turnover.
Missing was on-field sound from the Steelers. (Were only the Packers coaches and players wearing microphones?) Also missing were quicker updates on injuries. (Those things came, but slower than necessary.)
Still, the game was the highlight of the night—close to the end, which will boost ratings, and entertaining.
Halftime with the Black Eyed Peas was a big miss as the group, without enough of a playlist of its own to carry the show, leaned on Slash from Guns n’ Roses and Usher to round out the set. With misfires from Usher’s microphone, though, bad things got worse.
As always, there were standout commercials, with humor as the common element. Tops on the list were Pepsi Max and Doritos (both early), Budweiser (Tiny Dancer), Volkswagen (Darth Vader), a Bridgestone (beaver/dam) spot and an promo for “House” that mimicked the famous Joe Greene commercial for Coke.
Misses came from almost every automaker and Best Buy, which could not parlay Ozzy Osborne and Justin Beiber into anything special.
Day-After Updates: Oh My, Myers
--- As far as post-game interviews go, Chris Myers' effort with Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was a sub-standard effort. Granted, it was a lose-lose situation for a sideline reporter, but Myers made no connection and the usually loquacious Tomlin was forthright enough to make it work. CBS reporter Steve Tasker set the standard with his Q-and-A with Rex Ryan (admittedly Ryan carried it as Tomlin attempted to Sunday night) after the AFC Championship Game and Myers could not get to that level. He seems aloof and cold and that came across on TV.
--- Biggest miss for Joe Buck-Troy Aikman, especially with former NFL officiating guru Mike Pereira in the booth, was not being critical enough of the officials. Two calls were especially troublesome for Packers fans -- the phantom facemask penalty (which is forgivable because of the angle of the official) and the forward progress on a Steelers pass play when the receiver caught the play, ran backward, got tackled behind where he initially pulled in the pass and was given the initial forward progress. Typical NFL inconsistency, which typically goes unquestioned.
--- While the Terry Bradshaw-Ben Roethlisberger interview was promoted and played pretty well during the pregame show, the interesting thing was that Bradshaw said "It's important I have a relationship with you." Which begged a pretty big question. Why? Is it some NFL prerequisite that every QB who succeeds another farther down the the line in a successful team's lineage get along with his predecessors?
--- On-air types also missed some things viewers saw on screen, especially Troy Polamalu limping for the Steelers.
--- Final thoughts on the commercials ... Two spots for Eminem, and the cartoonish tea spot just seemed to balance the too-long and preachy Chrysler commercial. Plus, it was one of those situations where you cannot envision the pitchman using the product (Chryslter), even if the message was solid. ... GoDaddy's formula apparently works, but it seems tired to me. ... If the E-Trade baby has not run its course, the faux interview/silly, staged interaction between Curt Menefee and the baby certainly has no place on TV.
-- Oh, the NFL's own ad "Best. Fans. Ever." with clips from classic TV shows and NFL gear superimposed on the stars, was really good. ... Snickers returned with a "ouch" ad similar to what bolstered Betty White into pop culture circles last year. But, while the commercial might have been funny and even satisfying, it will not do for Roseanne Arnold what it did for White.
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