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Sunday Night’s Super Bowl Scores Second-Highest Ratings Ever

Actual viewer estimates for Sunday’s game will be out later today.

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Denver Broncos quarterback, Peyton Manning, attending Denver Broncos’ Military Appreciation Day on November 12, 2015.

CBS’ coverage of Super Bowl 50 was either the most- watched or third-most-watched program in USA television history – depending on which figures you look at.

For some perspective, Fox Business recently boasted of 1.4 million peak concurrent streams of its November 2015 Republican presidential primary debate.

It’s no big surprise that CBS’s Super Bowl stream notched record viewership.

Last year’s game between New England and Seattle, which went down to the wire, remains the most-watched Super Bowl ever with 114.4 million viewers. This year, 60 million people took to Facebook to converse about the game, while last year it was 65 million.

Some armchair commentators said the best part of the event was actually the halftime show that included Coldplay, Beyoncé, and Bruno Mars. On Facebook the next most-commented upon moments came at the end of the game and following Lady Gaga’s rendition of the National Anthem.

Colbert may have been hurt by the relatively late start, 10:54 p.m. on the East Coast, following post-game interviews and trophy presentations.

Internet streaming of Super Bowl is not counted, either.

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In addition, NBC’s live stream had also set records for average viewers per minute (800,000) and total minutes (213 million), per Adobe Analytics data cited by the network in its release at the time.

Super Bowl 50 Ratings: CBS Delivers Second Highest Overnights Ever