Super Bowl Boosts Elementary Ratings

As expected the Super Bowl boosted ratings for CBS drama Elementary which followed on the broadcaster but due to power outage which caused the Super Bowl to over-run ratings for the Sherlock Holmes drama were not as high as predicted.

According to overnight ratings for Sunday evening the post-super bowl edition of Elementary, which stars Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, pulled in 20.8 million viewers with a whopping 7.8 18-49 rating. That makes the episode the best rated episode of Elementary so far and likely to remain its most watched episode ever.

However, the power outage during the Super Bowl meant it was late running and Elementary was shunted out of the prime-time slot as a consequence – which meant it will have lost out on valuable viewers. The figure for the post Super Bowl drama is the lowest any programme following the event since American Dad in 2005. However, as Elementary aired outside prime time it did out-rate the last post super bowl show to air outside of prime-time which was J.J Abram’s drama Alias in  2003.

Below is the press release from CBS:

Despite the latest start time ever for a post-Super Bowl broadcast, the freshman drama Elementary delivered 20.8 million viewers, 7.8 rating in adults 18-49, 8.3 in adults 25-54 and 7.4 in adults 18-34, according to Nielsen time period adjusted live plus same day fast nationals for Sunday, Feb. 3.

This represents the highest-rated entertainment broadcast of the year in television among adults 18-49, adults 25-54 (tie, “The Big Bang Theory”) and adults 18-34.

Elementary Super Bowl (S) from 11:11 PM-12:11 AM delivered an 11.6/23 with an average of 20.80m viewers, 8.3 in adults 25-54, 7.8 in adults 18-49 and 7.4 in adults 18-34, all series highs. Elementary delivered +3.45 million viewers more than “Alias” in 2003 (11:01 PM start time), the only other post-Super Bowl program to air completely out of primetime. Elementary also topped “Alias” in adults 18-34 (7.4 vs. 7.2)

Showcasing the freshman drama to new viewers in the post-Super Bowl timeslot, Elementary delivered +61% increase over its season average in viewers (vs. 12.88m, +7.92 million viewers), +160% in adults 18-49 (from 3.0/09), +102% in adults 25-54 (4.1/10) and +335% in adults 18-34 (from 1.7/06