Sunday’s National Nielsen Rating Is the Lowest for Super Bowl Since 1974

The national Nielsen rating for last Sunday’s Super Bowl game was a 41.9, ABC announced Thursday.

That’s the lowest Super Bowl rating since 1974, when the Miami Dolphins and Minnesota Vikings drew a 41.6. Only 6 of the 22 Super Bowls have had a lower rating.

But since the number of television households is now higher than in previous years, the game between the Washington Redskins and Denver Broncos still ranks as the fifth most-watch program of any kind, attracting an estimated 110 million viewers.

The 41.9 rating means the game was watched in 41.9% of the nation’s 88.6 million television households.

The first half-hour of the game drew a 42.6 rating, and it grew to a peak of 43.4 in the second quarter. By the end of the game, the rating had dropped to 37.7.

The highest-rated Super Bowl was a 49.1 for the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals in 1982. The highest rating for any television program was a 60.2 for the final episode of “M*A*S*H” on Feb. 28, 1983.