Super Bowl XLV sets TV viewership record

An average of 111 million people watched Super Bowl XLV, making it the most-watched show in the history of American television.

The game on Fox easily surpassed the 106.5 million who watched last year's Super Bowl on CBS, a figure that finally ended the 27-year reign of the M*A*S*H series finale (106 million) as the most-watched program.

The strong Super Bowl performance capped another year of huge ratings success across the board for the NFL.

Viewership totals generally are aided by the rising U.S. population, but ratings - which measure the percentage of homes watching - have trended lower for most of television in recent years, given the ever-widening array of media options.

That is what makes this figure perhaps more remarkable than the viewership record: 46.0 percent of homes watched Sunday, matching Super Bowl XXX 15 years ago as the highest-rated Super Bowls of the past quarter century.

Only eight Super Bowls have exceeded a 46 rating, all of them played between 1978 and '86.

In the New York area, an average of 42.6 percent of homes watched, the highest in 28 years for a Super Bowl not involving a New York team.