Super Bowl beats 1998 ratings

NEW YORK -- This lopsided Super Bowl drew more TV viewers than last year's down-to-the-wire thriller.\nABC Sports' telecast Sunday of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 48-21 victory over the Oakland Raiders for the NFL title registered a preliminary rating of 43.8 -- 3 percent higher than last year and the best since 1998.\nThat means an average of 43.8 percent of the country's homes with televisions were watching at any given moment.\nThe Super Bowl is often the most-watched program of the year; nine of the 15 highest-rated shows ever are NFL championships.\nPreliminary, or overnight, ratings measure the country's 55 largest TV markets, nearly 70 percent of the United States. More complete ratings were expected later Monday.\nLast year, the New England Patriots' 20-17 upset of the St. Louis Rams on a final-play field goal had a 42.5 overnight rating on Fox. The final national rating of 40.4 tied for the fourth-lowest for a Super Bowl since 1972.\nThe 1998 overnight rating was 44.4 for NBC's telecast of Denver's 31-24 victory over Green Bay.\nViewership was consistently high throughout ABC's broadcast Sunday. It started with a 41.7 for the first half hour and rose to 44.5 by the end of the second quarter. Even halftime was a popular show, with a 43.4 rating from 8 to 8:30 p.m. EST.\nThe audience -- which advertisers paid ABC an average of just over $2 million per 30-second commercial to reach -- dipped from 9 to 9:30 p.m. EST, when Tampa Bay enjoyed its biggest lead, 34-3. A mini-rally by Oakland followed, and ratings peaked in the final 15 minutes, with 46.1 of the country tuning in.\n"There was a significant interest in the game: the matchups, the coaching story with Jon Gruden," said Neal Pilson, former president of CBS Sports and now a consultant. "And the game kind of rescued itself late in the third quarter, when Oakland scored a couple of touchdowns. We were headed for a real blowout"