Days after NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LII, the network is adding more than 12 million out-of-home viewers to the total viewer estimate, based on new figures from Nielsen.
NBC said the out-of-home metric for the Super Bowl was based solely on viewership of the NBC broadcast and that it gave the broadcast a 12% lift to an average of 115.6 million viewers, up from the 103.4 million viewers reported on Monday.
“We know that the Super Bowl is watched in large groups by many at parties, on college campuses, and elsewhere, so we are pleased to be able to report a lift that is in the double digits percentage wise to our NBC broadcast,” said Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBC Broadcasting and Sports, in a statement. “We will continue to utilize ‘out of home’ reporting throughout the Winter Games, as the Olympics is a communal event that brings people together.”
Nielsen's out-of-home metric uses portable people meters to measure viewership in places including hotels, gyms, bars, second-homes and the workplace. NBC said it will be able to report out-of-home audience metrics for all primetime events during its coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics.
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Without factoring in out-of-home viewership, Last weekend’s matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots averaged 103.4 million viewers, down about 7% from the average 111.3 million that tuned in last year for the Super Bowl on Fox.
According to NBC, viewership peaked at 112.3 million from 10-10:15 p.m. ET during the fourth quarter.
The Super Bowl scored a Total Audience Delivery of 106 million viewers across all platforms—NBC, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, NBC.com ‘TV Everywhere,’ Universo, En Vivo app, NFL.com, NFL Mobile from Verizon, the Yahoo Sports app and go90—according to Nielsen’s Fast National data. By adding in the out-of-home viewership, NBC said the Super Bowl pulled in a Total Audience Delivery of 118.2 million viewers.