Ten Years of Super Bowls and Lead-Outs

There are other places to find viewership and household info on Super Bowls and lead-out programs going back even farther (here are lists of all the Super Bowls and all the lead-outs on TVBTN) but I wanted to look at both viewers and the adults 18-49 demo, and I could only reliably find that stuff going back ten years. First, the Super Bowls:

Date	Number	Net	Result	Viewers (millions)	A18-49 rating	A18-49 share
1/28/2001	XXXV	CBS	BAL 34, NYG 7	84.33	35.8	71
2/3/2002	XXXVI	Fox	NE 20, STL 17	86.80	34.7	70
1/26/2003	XXXVII	ABC	TB 48, OAK 21	88.64	36.4	70
2/1/2004	XXXVIII	CBS	NE 32, CAR 29	89.79	35.7	72
2/6/2005	XXXIX	Fox	NE 24, PHI 21	86.07	33.2	68
2/5/2006	XL	ABC	PIT 21, SEA 10	90.75	34.6	69
2/4/2007	XLI	CBS	IND 29, CHI 17	93.18	35.2	70
2/3/2008	XLII	Fox	NYG 17, NE 14	97.45	37.5	73
2/1/2009	XLIII	NBC	PIT 27, ARI 23	98.73	36.7	72
2/7/2010	XLIV	CBS	NO 31, IND 17	106.48	38.6	75

Now, the lead-outs and their retention of the game number. I'll note, of course, that the two programs are separated by the post-game show. In the last four years, the post-game always lasted right around 25 minutes, but in past years it's been more variable (the Alias year is particularly infamous for having a long show, and that contributed in part to its bad retention).

	Net	Show	Viewers (millions)	Viewer retention	A18-49 rating	A18-49 retention
1/28/2001	CBS	Survivor	45.37	53.8%	21.8	60.9%
2/3/2002	Fox	Malcolm in the Middle	21.45	24.7%	10.5	30.3%
1/26/2003	ABC	Alias	17.40	19.6%	8.2	22.5%
2/1/2004	CBS	Survivor	33.53	37.3%	14.9	41.7%
2/6/2005	Fox	The Simpsons*	23.07	26.8%	11.3	34.0%
2/5/2006	ABC	Grey's Anatomy	37.88	41.7%	16.5	47.7%
2/4/2007	CBS	Criminal Minds	26.31	28.2%	10.0	28.4%
2/3/2008	Fox	House	29.05	29.8%	12.9	34.4%
2/1/2009	NBC	The Office	22.91	23.2%	11.0	30.0%
2/7/2010	CBS	Undercover Boss	38.65	36.3%	16.2	42.0%

*- The Simpsons was followed by the premiere of American Dad!, not included here since the "retention" is not apples-to-apples when it has another half-hour difference. It got a (preliminary) 15.1 million viewers and 7.5 rating in adults 18-49.

One other thing I was interested in was the longer-term "impact" of the Super Bowl lead-in, so I took a look at how the recent veteran shows did in their last five episodes before getting the lead-in and their first five after.

Net	Show	5 before	5 after	change
Fox	The Simpsons	4.57	4.19	-8.3%
ABC	Grey's Anatomy	8.58	10.38	+21.0%
CBS	Criminal  Minds	4.44	4.10	-7.7%
Fox	House*	7.44	6.32	-15.1%
NBC	The Office	4.48	4.30	-4.0%

*- I considered not even including House, which aired just one episode two days after the Bowl before running out of eps and leaving the air for nearly three months due to the strike. It did do slightly better in its one (post-Idol) ep immediately after (9.0) than in its last one before (8.7).
**- Some of these averages have at least some preliminary numbers: 4 for Simpsons before, 3 for Simpsons after, and 1 for Grey's after.

So most veteran shows that air after the Bowl do not get even a short-term bump and just go on taking the typical declines that come with the spring. Even reducing it to just the one ep before/after, Simpsons and Office still saw declines. The impact on Grey's was quite tangible, but apparently it has to be exactly the right kind of show to make a real impact. Will Glee be that kind of show? Like Grey's, it's still relatively young, but I'm not sure it has the room to grow that Grey's clearly still did. Looking at the ratings, it seems the show peaked with its early season 2 eps. We'll see.