Super Bowl 2024 Viewership Numbers Just Broke An Unbelievable Record
CBS just scored a major victory. According to Variety, Super Bowl LVIII pulled in 123.7 million viewers, making it television's most-watched broadcast ever.
It was also a substantial victory for traditional broadcasting, as most of the program's audience tuned in the old-fashioned way. Variety reports that 112 million viewers watched the game on CBS, with Paramount+, Nickelodeon, Univision, CBS Sports, and various NFL-related broadcast outfits adding to the total. It was an all-around victory for those networks, with Paramount+ proclaiming record viewership; this year's contest may end up being the most-streamed Super Bowl of all time, but hard data backing up this claim isn't available yet.
Super Bowl LVIII joins several other Super Bowl broadcasts on the list of the most-watched television programs of all time. And you have to do a little bit of digging, but one legendary installment of a popular drama also ranks among history's most-watched pieces of televised media.
Many previous Super Bowls were highly-watched affairs
The list of the 10 most-watched television broadcasts of all time is otherwise comprised of previous Super Bowl telecasts. The runner-up on the list is 2023's Super Bowl LVII, with over 115 million viewers. After that, Super Bowl XLIX (over 114 million), Super Bowl XLVIII (over 112 million), and Super Bowl 50 (112,336 million) round out the top five.
What's the most-watched television program that isn't a football-related broadcast? That would be the Apollo 11 moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, and drew an estimated 125 to 150 million viewers across all broadcast networks. The most popular broadcast of a fictional program is still the series finale of "M*A*S*H," "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen," which saw 106 million viewers tune in on February 28, 1983. Other iconic television installments — including the series finale of "Seinfeld," the solution to the "Who Shot JR?" drama on "Dallas," and several airings of the miniseries "Roots" — haven't been able to top the mass appeal of "M*A*S*H*." The world will have to wait and wonder if its mark will ever be beaten.