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 LVII 2023
Super Bowl LVII brought the best out of live television. A strong broadcast from start to finish showcased one of the best games in recent memory with exciting plays, entertaining commercials and a gravity-defying half-time show by the one and only Rihanna. Whether you were cheering (and maybe betting) for the Kansas City Chiefs or the Philadelphia Eagles you were on the edge of your seat for the entire game. The Eagles came out strong and had a 10-point lead heading into the second half but The Chiefs, led by Patrick Mahomes, didn't give up and battled back to tie the game in the 4th quarter. This led to an intense final couple of minutes where The Chiefs used more brain than brawn, and maybe the help of a controversial penalty call, to win the game. Running down the clock, the Chiefs hit a field goal with a second left to secure their 2nd Super Bowl Championship in the last 4 years.
More TV audience and advertising details on how the Super Bowl performed are highlighted below.
Super Bowl Audience Analysis Highlights
- Average viewing levels to CTV Total for Ind2+ were slightly higher than last year at 7.4m (up 2.5%) and up almost 29% on RDS.
- 17.3 million Canadians tuned in to the Super Bowl on one of the three networks (CTV, TSN+ or RDS) at some point during the game (392,000 more than last year).
- Ratings for Adults 25-54 were up, particularly in the Toronto/Hamilton EM. CTV Total achieved a rating of 26.1 for this demo compared to 21.6 last year (an increase of 21%).
- As usual, viewing peaked during the halftime show. Rihanna delivered an average audience on CTV Total of 10.2m beating the hip-hop collective performance from last year (9.7m).
- On average 39% of Canadians watched the game on CTV Total in groups of 3 or more. This figure increased in the Edmonton market to 47% whereas it was only 25% in Vancouver.
- In-home vs out of home viewing also fluctuated by market with 88% of Ind2+ in Toronto/Hamilton EM watching CTV Total at home compared to 74% of Ind2+ in the Vancouver market.
- As with last year, the heaviest category advertising within the game was the financial category. TD Bank and RBC both featured in the top 10 list of heaviest brands.
