Published on February 5th, 2019 | by Brad Gibson

Super Bowl LIII sets new streaming records

Super Bowl LIII had disappointing TV ratings Sunday, but those streaming the game set new records, according to CBS.

Sunday’s game — in which the New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 for the team’s sixth Super Bowl victory — scored 98.2 million viewers watching on terrestrial, cable, or satellite TV, declining 5 percent year-over-year, according to Nielsen, making it the lowest ratings in 11 years. Last year, Nielsen said 103.4 million people watched the game.

But it was those streaming that scored positive numbers for CBS. The game had an average 2.6 million viewers per minute to CBS’s official streaming broadcast. Streaming was up 31 percent compared to last year’s numbers, when NBC’s broadcast of the game saw a then-record-breaking average of 2 million viewers.

CBS also boasted in a press release that the Super Bowl was watched across 7.5 million unique devices, which is up 20 percent from the 2018 game. More than 560 million total minutes of the game were consumed via streaming, up 19 percent from last year’s game.

CBS did not require authentication with a cable provider to view the game, making Super Bowl LIII free to watch across multiple platforms.

In addition to the unauthenticated streams, the Super Bowl was also available on CBS All Access, which is available through the CBS tvOS app. According to the network, Sunday saw a record-breaking number of new subscriber signups for the services.

Super Bowl Sunday also saw new single-day records for unique viewers and time spent on the platform for CBS All Access.

Despite the lower TV ratings for the game, Netflix reported Monday it’s normal U.S. viewership was down some 32 percent compared to any other Sunday saying “apparently this Super Bowl thing is kind of a big deal.”

so apparently this Super Bowl thing is kind of a big deal … looks like Netflix viewing in the US is down about 32% compared to a normal Sunday
— Netflix US (@netflix) February 4, 2019

Tags: Apple, apple tv, cbs, CBS All Access, NFL, Super Bowl, super bowl liii

About the Author

Brad Gibson Brad is co-founder and editor-in-chief of BESTAppleTV.com. He has been a technology reporter since the late 1980s having previously worked for MacUser, MacFormat, and iCreate magazines, as well as MacNN.com, MacObserver.com, MacCentral.com, MacMinute.com, and Macworld.com. He hosted and produced the MacFormat This Week podcast for three years. He was also a reporter, editor, and producer for the Associated Press and United Press International.