What does it take to outdraw the Tremendous Bowl? Nancy and Tonya, Sam and Diane, Hawkeye and J.R. Ewing.
On an annual foundation, there’s the Tremendous Bowl after which there’s all the things else in tv. Nothing, not even different NFL video games, comes shut. (Maybe a information occasion right here or there may gross a bigger viewers, however not on a single community.) But one doesn’t have to return too lengthy (comparatively) to search out the final time the Tremendous Bowl was not the very best rated program of the 12 months.
To search out the final program to common a better ranking than the Tremendous Bowl in the identical 12 months, one want return 30 years to Lillehammer, Norway. When American determine skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked weeks earlier than the Olympics by goons later linked to her U.S. rival Tonya Harding, determine skating acquired a cultural cachet like few sports activities have skilled earlier than or since. Determine skating was already significantly extra well-liked within the mid-Nineties than it’s immediately, and the Nancy-Tonya scandal was good fodder in an period when the tabloids had been maybe particularly shameless.
On the primary night time of the ladies’s determine skating competitors, tape-delayed primetime protection on CBS averaged a whopping 48.5 ranking, greater than any program since, together with each subsequent Tremendous Bowl (the very best rated of which was Patriots-Seahawks in 2015 at a 47.5). It was additionally greater than the Cowboys-Payments Tremendous Bowl on NBC lower than a month earlier (45.5), marking the newest time that any program has overwhelmed the Tremendous Bowl in the identical 12 months. The viewership determine that night time — 78.7 million, one of many largest non-NFL tv audiences ever – was about 11 million fewer than Cowboys-Payments (90.0M), a disparity that may possible be defined by the larger ranges of visitor viewing from the normal Tremendous Bowl events.
1994 was the second-straight 12 months that the Tremendous Bowl was not the very best rated present on tv. Lower than a 12 months earlier than Nancy and Tonya, it was Sam and Diane that topped the charts. The sequence finale of NBC’s Cheers — that includes the return of Shelley Lengthy’s Diane Chambers for the primary time in six years — averaged a forty five.4 ranking in Could 1993, barely greater than the Tremendous Bowl (one other Cowboys-Payments matchup on NBC) earlier within the 12 months (45.1). As with 1994, the Tremendous Bowl nonetheless completed with a bigger viewers, its 91.0 million viewers comfortably topping the Cheers viewers of 80.4 million.
To discover a program that truly averaged extra viewers than the Tremendous Bowl, one must return one other decade to the sequence finale of M*A*S*H. With an viewers of 106 million viewers, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” was the most-watched program in U.S. tv historical past for 27 years, from its first airing in February 1983 via the Saints’ defeat of the Colts within the 2010 Tremendous Bowl. The episode averaged practically 25 million extra viewers than Washington’s defeat of Miami within the Tremendous Bowl lower than a month earlier (81.77M). The scores disparity was additionally vast, as M*A*S*H averaged a 60.3 and the Tremendous Bowl a 48.6 (nonetheless the second-highest within the historical past of the sport).
Three years earlier, the decision of the “Who Shot J.R.?” Dallas cliffhanger averaged 83.6 million on CBS — comfortably topping the Steelers-Rams Tremendous Bowl on the identical community (76.3M). Within the scores, Dallas clocked in at a 53.3 and the Tremendous Bowl at a 46.3. Three years previous to that, the Tremendous Bowl was not even the highest program of the month as its 44.4 ranking positioned simply fifth for January 1977 behind 4 episodes of ABC’s “Roots” miniseries — the most-watched of which was stated to have averaged wherever from 80-100 million viewers, in comparison with 62.1 million for the Raiders’ win over the Vikings.
An honorable point out ought to go to the sequence finale of Seinfeld, which averaged a hefty 41.3 ranking on NBC in Could 1998 — greater than the next Tremendous Bowl in January 1999 (Broncos-Falcons: 40.2), however no match for the same-year version months earlier (Broncos-Packers: 44.5). (Its viewers of 76.3 million was decrease than each video games.)
There are extra examples, however the additional again one goes, scores within the 30s and 40s had been far more frequent. A 1976 airing of “Gone with the Wind” averaged a 47.5 throughout two nights on NBC, surpassing not simply the Tremendous Bowl months earlier (42.3), however each primetime program to that time. Even an airing of the 1970 movie “Airport” managed a 42.3 on ABC in 1973, practically matching the Tremendous Bowl at a 42.7. Whereas the Tremendous Bowl has been an outsized scores draw from the start, it was not unusual in its first decade for comparatively unremarkable programming to common comparable scores.
It must be famous that the applications talked about on this article are in their very own manner iconic. The sequence finales of three of the best-loved sitcoms of all-time in M*A*S*H, Cheers and Seinfeld, a as soon as in a lifetime determine skating scandal, a historic epic in “Roots” and a pop cultural sensation in “Who Shot J.R?”
The situations now not exist for something like these applications to ever air once more. There aren’t any scripted sequence that resonate with the good mass of individuals. There may be all the time the potential for lurid scandal, however it’s onerous to check any modern-day story that may pull 80 million viewers to a tv set on the identical time. Past that, the bar is greater now than it was then; 80 million can be an unbelievable quantity and nonetheless come 30-40 million shy of a Tremendous Bowl. What was as soon as a uncommon, however not unprecedented occasion is now one thing in all chance won’t ever occur once more.
