Atlanta tops Boston in Super Bowl TV ratings

The rating is the percentage of the market’s TV households tuned in on average to the telecast.

Nationally, Fox’s telecast of the Patriots’ 34-28 win in the first overtime game in Super Bowl history delivered a 48.8 overnight rating.

The overnight rating, which measures the nation’s 56 metered markets, was down slightly from the previous two Super Bowls — 49.0 last year and 49.7 in 2015.

The national TV audience for Sunday’s game averaged 111.3 million viewers for Fox, marking the eighth consecutive year the Super Bowl has been watched by more than 100 million U.S. viewers.

The number of viewers was the fifth largest in Super Bowl history but the lowest since 2013. The largest was 114.4 million for New England’s win over Seattle in the 2015 game.

Fox said an additional 1.72 million viewers watched Sunday’s game via online streaming and another 650,000-plus via the Spanish-langage broadcast on the Fox Deportes channel.

Two markets delivered higher ratings than either of the participating teams’ cities. Pittsburgh posted a 57.9 rating and Buffalo 57.2.

Atlanta had the third highest rating among the metered markets and Boston the eighth highest.

It was the third time in the past four Super Bowls that the highest-rated market didn’t have a team in the game, according to Fox.

In another Nielsen measure, the Super Bowl posted an 82 “share” in the Atlanta market, meaning 82 percent of the homes with TVs in use at the time were watching the game. That was the highest share registered in any market, topping Boston’s 81.

Atlanta viewership peaked between 10 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. During those 15 minutes, 62 percent of the market’s TV households were watching the game, including 88 percent of the homes with TVs in use at the time.

SUPER BOWL RATINGS

The top 10 markets in the Nielsen ratings for Sunday’s Super Bowl:

Market / Rating / Share

1. Pittsburgh / 57.9 / 78

2. Buffalo / 57.2 / 78

3. Atlanta / 57.0 / 82

4. Norfolk, Va. / 55.9 / 75

5. Richmond, Va. / 55.7 / 73

6. Milwaukee / 54.8 / 75

7. Providence, R.I. / 54.6 / 78

8. Boston / 54.3 / 81

9. Indianapolis / 54.1 / 75

10. Minneapolis / 54.0 / 78

10. Hartford, Conn. / 54.0 / 72

(Note: Rating is the percentage of the market’s TV households watching on average. Share is the percentage of the market’s households with TVs in use at the time watching.)

(Source: Nielsen Media Research figures provided by Fox Sports.)