Record 9.23 Million Canadians Watched 2015 Super Bowl

Photo Credit: Rawlings

Super Bowl XLIX was best defined as the game New England Patriots fended-off a late game charge to win over the Seattle Seahawks 28-24. While the players of one team left the field victorious with the ultimate prize of being NFL champions, the football game was a massive win for television stations broadcasting the game. In the United States, NBC quickly sold 30-second commercial spots for 4.5 million dollars ahead of the Super Bowl and recorded consistent viewership of 114.4 million Americans watching the close, suspense-filled match. An all-new record for a Super Bowl broadcast, the 2015 game's peak viewership topped out at 120.8 million through a late New England Patriots drive for a touchdown. In Canada, the 49th annual football game was also a ratings blockbuster.

Between CTV and the French-language RDS sports channel, Super Bowl XLIX drew an average audience of 9.23 million viewers according to Bell Media making it the most-watched edition of the game ever in this country. The 2015 game breaks the 8.18 million audience that watched the 2012 Super Bowl tournament between the New England Patriots and New York Giants.

While the majority of Canadian audiences were accounted watching CTV, there was a million Francophone viewers alone. Over the course of the Super Bowl telecast in this country, 19.3 million unique members of the Canadian population watched the game at some part in the Sunday evening. The total number of viewers meant roughly 55 percent of Canada's total population watched the Super Bowl. Bell Media also noted that the event's halftime show drew 12.2 million in this country consisting of Katy Petty singing alongside guests Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott.

Once again, Canadian viewers of "The Big Game" lost out on seeing a majority of the highly-produced commercials created for the NBC airing of the game. Leading up to this year's Super Bowl, a CRTC ruling decried after 2016 that Canadian broadcasts could no longer replace the American advertisements with others supplied through the telecast provider in this country. Called simultaneous substitution, this is a common practice exercised in Canadian broadcasting for almost any broadcast from the United States shown as the same time in Canada. For Super Bowl XLIX, the result was commercials from Canadian Armed Forces, Tim Hortons, Government of Canada, PC Financial and Home Hardware making it to air on CTV.

Explained as a response to the CRTC's public consultation Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians, the plan to outlaw simultaneous substitution has not sat well with Bell Media and its parent company Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE). Bell owns the rights to the Canadian broadcast of the Super Bowl and would lose autonomy in distributing their ad space. Days following the ruling, the notion of discontinuing simultaneous substitution was greatly argued by pundits (many against the CRTC coming from Bell-owned media companies). BCE noted the influence of sponsors in their press release saying, "Last night's record audience proves once again there is no better opportunity for Canadian advertisers to strike a chord with Canadian viewers than the Super Bowl.". Bell Media properties also received considerable ad time throughout the 2015 game.   

After the record 2015 Super Bowl, 1.35 million Canadians remained on CTV to watch the season 2 premiere of Masterchef Canada.

CTV Records Second-Largest Canadian Audience During Sunday Night's Super Bowl

Less than super, Super Bore, the Snoozer Bowl have been some many ways to describe Sunday night's NFL championship match-up between the Denver Broncos and the victorious Seattle Seahawks. Taking the lead after a single mistake by the Broncos' offense, the Seahawks commanded the field of MetLife Stadium throughout the 48th Super Bowl to win 43-8. A couple years ago, remembered watching the Toronto-based Buffalo Bills game versus the Seahawks and was not the least bit surprised the Seattle NFL team could mount such a Super Bowl feat against, what was on paper, a formidable Denver team.

Despite the dominating performance of Seattle driven by quarterback Russell Wilson and a near unbreakable defensive line, fans gave Super Bowl XLVIII continuing attention. Recording big ratings in the United States, Canadian fans of American football were also glued to "The Big Game".

Numbers released by CTV (Canada's broadcast affiliate for the 2014 Super Bowl) revealed that Sunday night's game was the second-highest watched broadcast of the event in this country. Shown on the main CTV stations and on French sports network RDS, the 2014 Super Bowl combined to draw an average viewership of 8 million. The viewership fell just short of the record-setting 2012 Super Bowl broadcast in Canada that achieved 8.2 million average sets of eyeballs. While the average amount of viewers achieved 8 million, CTV has accounted that 18 million unique viewers watched at least some part of the 2014 Super Bowl broadcast. Viewership among the 18-49 and 25-54 age demographics showed growth greater than one-third over the 2013 Super Bowl. On CTV and RDS, the adult male demographic share was rated between 65 and 74 percent.

With the Seattle Seahawks' appearance in the 2014 game, western Canadian markets recorded all-time high audiences for this year's Super Bowl. Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton area fans turned on the television set in record numbers.

The non-sport element of the 2014 Super Bowl also proved popular among Canadians. During this year's acclaimed halftime performance, CTV estimates almost 10 million viewers watched Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers entertain in New Jersey.