More People Watch Doritos Spot Than Game
And the winner for most-watched Super Bowl commercial is…Doritos’ gym guys!
According to Nielsen, more than 116 million viewers watched the spot which featured two hapless guys attacked for stealing a bag of Doritos from another guy’s gym locker, making it the most viewed television commercial of all time.
That’s more people than watched the game itself, which at 106.2 million viewers now stands as the most-watched program in television history, knocking down a 27-year-old record for the final episode of M*A*S*H.
The spot aired at 9:30 p.m. when tune-in for the game was at its peak. The second most-viewed ad was Audi’s Green Police spot, which was viewed by 115.6 million people at 9:26 p.m.
Interestingly, Focus on the Family’s controversial Tim Tebow spot, which sucked up much ink leading up to the game, tied Snickers’ Betty White spot as the least watched. But with both ads garnering 95.5 million viewers, “least-watched” is relative.
The much-analyzed Late Show promo featuring David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey and a chip-munching Jay Leno was seen by an estimated 110.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
(The box below includes only paid advertisements.)
| Most Viewed Ads During Super Bowl XLIV | |||
| RANK | Commercial | Time of Air (ET) | # of Viewers |
| 1 | DORITOS/Gym | 9:30:01 PM | 116,231,920 |
| 2 | AUDI/Green Police | 9:26:29 PM | 115,647,840 |
| 3 | ELECTRONIC ARTS/Dante’s Inferno | 9:15:22 PM | 115,063,760 |
| 4 | HONDA/Squirrel | 9:20:20 PM | 114,771,720 |
| 5 | TACO BELL/It Rocks | 9:27:29 PM | 114,771,720 |
| 6 | BUD LIGHT/Book Party | 9:32:13 PM | 114,771,720 |
| 7 | HYUNDAI/Built By Hand | 9:32:43 PM | 114,771,720 |
| 8 | BUDWEISER/Horse Fence | 9:15:52 PM | 113,603,560 |
| 9 | US CENSUS BUREAU/Production Mtg | 8:49:23 PM | 113,019,480 |
| 10 | E*TRADE/5 Babies | 9:33:13 PM | 112,727,440 |
| Source: The Nielsen Company | |||
John Fuller commented:
This article seems to imply some commercials had more drawing power than others. Commercial tuning is a function of program viewing levels at a given moment; the writer even said the Doritos spot aired at the game's tune-in peak. I find it unpersuasive that, even in the Super Bowl, new viewers tune in just to watch a given commercial. If the E*Trade spot were swapped with the Doritos spot, it would probably have been the most watched. Therefore, the table doesn't illustrate the appeal of a given spot at all, just when it was scheduled. On top of that, there isn't a nickel's worth of difference in audience size between #1 and #10.