"LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The New England Patriots' upset Super Bowl victory over the St. Louis Rams not only produced an unusual nail-biting finish to a National Football League championship but also good ratings for Fox television.
The 3 1/2-hour Super Bowl XXXVI broadcast on Sunday scored a respectable 42.5 household rating in 51 of the biggest U.S. television markets, up 7 percent from last year's numbers, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen Media Research.
By comparison, the CBS broadcast last January of the Baltimore Ravens' victory over the New York Giants drew a household rating of 39.7.
With each rating point equivalent to about 700,000 households, the early numbers indicate that viewers in more than 29.75 million homes were tuned into the Patriots-Rams game. Figures for the actual number of viewers were to be made available later in the day.
The Super Bowl typically ranks as the highest-rated single U.S. telecast of the year, and the Patriots' last-minute defeat of the heavily favored Rams turned what many expected to be a dull game into an instant gridiron classic.
The unpredictable outcome was obviously good for Fox Sports, with preliminary ratings showing an increase in viewership every quarter-hour of the broadcast, except for the half-time show, when ratings dipped about 4 percent.
Still, the half-time performance by the rock band U2 held up well against an attempt by rival NBC to lure away Fox Sports' audience with a Playmate edition of the gross-out reality show "Fear Factor" aired during the same half hour.
U2 ended up with a 40.7 household rating, compared with 6.8 for the Playmates, according to early Nielsen figures."
Hey - that's 28.5 million new fans!!!
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You ain't nothin without a rhythm section.
"Who's to say what it is will break you."
