Lack of suspense hurts television ratings

Jeff Goodman

Tuesday, Feb. 2, 1999 | 10:20 a.m.

NEW YORK -- There was nothing super about the Super Bowl TV ratings.

With no marquee teams and little suspense in the second half, Denver's 34-19 victory over Atlanta drew the lowest Super Bowl rating in nine years.

"I think both (factors) certainly played a role," said Giles Lundberg, Fox's senior vice president for marketing and research. "There was not a team in the Super Bowl with the kind of draw of Dallas."

Sunday's broadcast on Fox drew a 40.2 rating and 61 share, down 9 percent from last year's NBC telecast of Denver's victory over Green Bay. The 61 share matched the lowest ever for the Super Bowl, tying the Washington-Buffalo game in 1992.

The rating was the lowest since San Francisco's victory over Denver in 1990 drew a 39.0.

The declining figures were largely attributable to 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 31-6 lead early in the fourth quarter.

The 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.

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 4-4:30 p.m. PST, 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, down from a 15.4 mark for the same period last year.