Super Bowl XLVII Is Most Viewed Show in U.S. TV history

The NFL announced today that Super Bowl XLVII reached a total audience of 164.1 million viewers, making it the most-viewed show in U.S. TV history. It is the third year in a row that the Super Bowl has set that same record.

CBS was quick to boast about the great success:

Nielsen reported the game scored a 48.1 rating and 71 share in its select measurement of big cities. That’s 1 percent over a similar measurement in last year’s game.

One ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share means that 71 percent of TVs that were on at the time were tuned to the Super Bowl.

The game also illustrated the explosive growth of second screen activity. The company Trendrr TV, which tracks activity on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, estimated there were 47.7 million social media posts during the game. That compares to 17 million during the 2012 Super Bowl and 3 million the year before that.