The Super Bowl plays a critical role in the media industry in Canada as it is the most watched live sporting event on TV.
It attracts record-breaking audiences driving brands to spend up to 8 times more on a 30 second spot during the coveted event.
Some of the most famous ads first aired during the Super Bowl including these listed here by Business Insider.
Our annual Hot Topic report uncovers the most detail on the Super Bowl including:
- total viewing trends with average minute audience by station
- viewing by demographic, regions and markets
- minute-by-minute analysis
- commercial trends by category and top brands advertising in the game
Clients with a TV PPM subscription can either access this report through the Lens platform or contact us directly.
Highlights for Super Bowl LVIII 2024
Super Bowl LVIII delivered across the board with a highly competitive and entertaining game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Fransisco 49ers. The Chiefs secured the win with an overtime touchdown, making them the first team to win back-to-back titles in almost 20 years. Canadians came out to watch, making this the most-watched Super Bowl with over 10 million people tuning in on an average minute. The game was a rematch from 2020 when the Chiefs beat the 49ers to win their first Super Bowl since 1970 and begin what has now become a team dynasty with 3 Championships in the last 5 years.
The Super Bowl in 2020 and this year, both reached 19 million Canadians overall making them the 2 best performing Super Bowls. However, 2024 takes the top spot based on viewer engagement. The average minute audience (AMA) this year was 4% higher than 2020, meaning the average viewer watched a larger portion of the game. This was the 7th longest game in NFL history and this highly competitive game that needed overtime to decide a winner was able to keep viewers engaged and on the edge of their seats until the very end.
The Half Time show featuring Usher drew the largest audience of the night and peaked at 8:33pm EST with just under 11 million viewers watching the English broadcast on CTV/TSN. This number jumps to over 12.5 million when including the French broadcast on RDS.
Should we expect these numbers to continue going forward? At this moment both the 49ers and Chiefs are the 2 favoured teams to make it back to the Super Bowl next year. No team has ever been able to win 3 Super Bowls in a row so, if both these teams can give us another rematch, there is no reason to believe the audience won't return with a few extra friends (especially if Taylor Swift is still dating Travis Kelce).
Super Bowl audience analysis highlights
- Highest AMA for an English Broadcast game with over 8.5 million viewers per minute.
- Second-highest AMA for a French broadcast game with over 1.4 million viewers per minute. Highest French broadcast was in 2020 with over 1.6 million viewers per minute.
- Gender split is consistent year over year and across markets with the Total Canada audience split this year being 53% male and 47% female (compared to 45% female last year).
- 35% of viewers in Total Canada were 34 years old or younger; 2-11 (10%), 12-17 (6%), 18-34 (19%).
- On average 38% of Canadians watched the game on CTV Total in groups of 3 or more. This figure increased to 43% in Toronto and Edmonton markets whereas it was only 29% in Vancouver.
- Taylor Swift was shown on TV 12 times during the broadcast and the Chiefs coach Andy Reid was drenched in purple Gatorade.
- The Finance category is still the heaviest category of advertising within the Super Bowl (CTV Toronto TV spot data). Retail advertising returns to the top 10 having not featured there last year.
