NEW YORK—CBS Sports’ coverage of Super Bowl LVIII, which featured the Kansas City Chiefs’ 25-22 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers, delivered record audiences with a total audience delivery of 123.4 million average viewers across all platforms, including the CBS Television Network, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, Univision, and CBS Sports, Univision and NFL digital properties, including NFL+.
CBS reported that it was the largest audience ever on a single network, with 120.0 million watching it on CBS. CBS also claimed that more than 200 million viewers (202.4) watched all or part of Super Bowl LVIII across networks, making it the highest unduplicated total audience in history and up +10% vs. last year’s Super Bowl (184 million).
To provide some context for the size of those numbers in a landscape where there are hundreds of viewing options, somewhere between 125 million and 150 million U.S. viewers watched the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 when there were just three broadcast networks in the U.S.
Viewership figures are based on Nielsen Fast National data and Adobe Analytics. Final Nielsen data will be available tomorrow.
CBS also said Super Bowl LVIII is the most-watched program ever, averaging 123.4 million viewers across all platforms, up +7% vs. last year’s Super Bowl which was the previous record (115.1 million).
Super Bowl LVIII on CBS led the way with 120.0 million viewers, the largest audience in history for a single network and the most-streamed Super Bowl in history, led by a record-setting audience on Paramount+.
The record viewing levels highlighted the growing importance of sports for linear TV, with networks like CBS and ESPN reporting record viewing during the 2023-24 NFL season. The NFL On CBS scored the most-watched regular season since the NFL returned to CBS in 1998 as well as the Network’s best postseason viewership since 1998.
