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 LIX 2025
This year's Super Bowl came with many expectations. The Chiefs were expecting to win their 3rd consecutive title, which would have been a first in the history of the NFL. The Eagles were looking for redemption and their 2nd Super Bowl Championship in the last 8 years. The fans were hoping for a highly competitive match; a rematch of the Super Bowl 2-years ago where the Chiefs narrowly beat the Eagles with a last-second field goal.
It's fair to say that not everyone got what they wanted, but when is that ever the case in sports? Especially when it comes down to a single winner-take-all game.
Overall, the game reached almost 16.6 million Canadians at some point during the broadcast, down 14% from last year. During the first half, the audience continued to build. The game was tight during the first quarter with the Eagles scoring the only touchdown.
The second quarter really decided the game. The Eagles defensive line was dominant, sacking Patrick Mahomes 3 times during the quarter alone and increasing their lead to 24 points. The game had an average of over 7.2 million viewers per minute on the English broadcast. However, in the second quarter, the audience peaked at nearly 8.2 million.
The halftime show is a big part of the Super Bowl spectacle and usually brings in the night's highest viewing. Kendrick Lamar headlined the almost 15-minute musical performance with an average minute audience of 7.5 million, a slight increase over the game's English broadcast average but below its 2nd quarter performance. Still, he kept the audience engaged and viewing in the 3rd quarter stayed above the game's average.
The Eagles continued their dominance, sacking Mahomes 2 more times to kick off the quarter and ultimately extending their lead to 34 points. This tied an NFL Super Bowl record for the largest lead in a game. The Chiefs then managed their first touchdown to end the quarter.
With the game largely out of hand heading into the 4th quarter, audiences started to drift in and out delivering the lowest average audiences of the night.
But it wasn't over just yet, audiences came back at the end of the game to see The Eagles claim their championship title before calling it a night.
We have more insights available through our performance dashboard where you can see Super Bowl trends over the years, age and gender breakdowns across areas and top advertising categories. It also provides a minute-by-minute breakdown of the game, identifying viewing for key moments of the game including every touchdown and sack!
Super Bowl audience analysis highlights
- Viewing peaked during the 2nd quarter when, on average, 7.6m Canadians were watching the English broadcast.
- As usual the audience skewed male with the total audience being 55% male across the country. Montreal Franco had the highest proportion of female audience with the audience here being 49% female.
- The audience was slightly younger than last year with almost 38% of viewers in Total Canada being 34 years old or younger; 2-11 (10%), 12-17 (6%), 18-34 (22%).
- On average 32% of Canadians watched the game on CTV Total in groups of 3 or more. This figure increased to 42% in Edmonton whereas it was only 27% in Vancouver.
- Crave is again the heaviest brand advertising within the Super Bowl. However, the restaurant category is significantly busier this year with 9 brands advertising compared to only 5 last year.
