Announcements that networks make about viewership are like announcements that rich people make about the gold coins they swim in every night: kinda true, but fuzzy at the edges. Even so, viewership data suggests a huge audience saw Sunday's Super Bowl — 200 million people watched at least some part of it.
Most TV programming has seen audiences melt away like a witch under a bucket of water. Broadcast shows, cable shows, and special events like the Oscars and Emmys* are not what they once were.** But the Super Bowl seems to be immune. There is still this one old-school mass-viewership experience, the storied water-cooler topic (which is now, maybe, the "refill your Stanley tumbler" topic). Despite the ad-filled spectacle (and the spectacle-filled ads) and the growing queasiness, so many people have about CTE and off-the-field violence and exploitation of labor, this one thing is hanging on.
