Babies come from space. And TV ratings are reliable
WHEN it comes to gathering a massive audience, America’s Super Bowl shows that television can still whup other media like a linebacker arm-wrestling a mouse. On February 3rd some 109m people (more than a third of Americans) watched the big match on CBS, a broadcast network, according to Nielsen, a research firm. They also watched witty commercials, such as one for Kia cars in which an embarrassed dad, asked about the facts of life, tells his son that babies come from outer space (see picture).CBS also streamed the Super Bowl on its website to 3m people. But are they different people? How many were watching their iPads and TVs simultaneously? Nielsen, which dominates TV ratings in America, cannot be sure. (In any case, it will not release estimates of online viewing until March.)If measuring the Super Bowl’s audience sounds like a headache, try other programmes. Whereas most people still watch big sporting events live, around half of Americans use digital-video recorders (DVRs) to watch shows later, or order “video on demand” from their set-top boxes. They are also watching more…
