Ratings Hardly Super
By JEFF GOODMAN
AP Sports Writer
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NEW YORK -- The Atlanta Falcons and Denver Broncos don't have quite the same appeal as Dallas or Green Bay -- and it showed in one of the worst Super Bowl ratings ever.
Fox's telecast of the Super Bowl between the Falcons and Broncos on Sunday night -- a game essentially over early in the second half -- drew a 40.2 national rating, the lowest since 1990. The 61 share matched the lowest ever for the Super Bowl.
San Francisco's victory over Denver in 1990 drew a 39.0 rating; Washington's win over Buffalo in 1992 also posted a 61 share.
Even though the game Sunday might have been the last time viewers could see Denver quarterback John Elway in action, the rating was down 9 percent from NBC's 44.5 last year when the Broncos defeated Green Bay.
The 1999 Super Bowl did draw an estimated 127 million viewers in the United States, making it the sixth most-watched program in TV history.
The 1996 Super Bowl featuring Dallas and Pittsburgh was the most-watched program in U.S. television history, with more than 138 million viewers.
One of the major reasons for the decline in this year's Super Bowl ratings was the lack of a top draw. Denver doesn't play in a big market such as New York, and the Falcons were playing in their first Super Bowl.
The game also lacked excitement after Denver took a big lead in their 34-19 victory.
"I think both certainly played a role," said Giles Lundberg, Fox senior vice president for marketing and research. "There was not a team in the Super Bowl with the kind of draw of Dallas."
As usual, the game posted its highest ratings in the markets of the two teams. Atlanta was the top draw with a 58.2/79, while Denver was second, with a 51.6/83.
The peak rating, a 41.5/64, came from 7-7:30 p.m. EST, during the second quarter when the outcome of the game was still in doubt. That was a far cry from the 50.4/70 that tuned in to see the final half hour of Elway's first title run last season.
However, the number of viewers dropped off significantly during the second half when the Broncos put the game out of reach.
"The interception (of Chris Chandler) in the third quarter really made a difference," Lundberg said. "Our audience really dropped in the fourth quarter."
The seven-hour pregame held its own in the final three hours leading up to the game. From 3:30-6:26 p.m., Fox posted a 14.9 rating, up from a 15.4 mark for the same period last year.
Fox began the day with a 30-minute kickoff show at 11 a.m. that posted a 2.1 rating. Hardcore Football followed with a 2.7 and Keith Olbermann's All-Access gained a 4.1. John Madden's All-Millennium Team was the hit of the early part of the day with a 5.9 rating.
Even the postgame shows struggled. "The Family Guy," which had its premiere immediately after the game, had just a 12.6 rating -- the lowest of any programming this decade a post-Super Bowl time slot.
The rating is the percentage of TV households in the nation tuned to a program, and each point represents 990,400 homes. The share is the percentage tuned to a program among those televisions on at the time.
Copyright 1999, The Associated Press All rights reserved.
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