Erin Costa / CC
Who Dats turned off the Super Bowl in record numbers as boycott parties raged across New Orleans. Nielsen, who installs equipment that tracks what select TV watchers are tuning into, noted just over a quarter of New Orleans market watchers tuned in, for a score of 26.1. LSU Assistant Professor of Digital Advertising Jun Heo, says it’s a huge drop off from last year’s rating of 53.
“So it’s down 50 percent from last year, so (for example) 200 more households with the household meters did not watch it, or turned their TVs off.”
Nielsen estimates about 165,872 households had the game on last night in the New Orleans market.
National ratings cratered during this year’s 13-3 snoozer that featured a widely panned half time performance and only six total points scored by the beginning of the 4th quarter. The 44.9 national rating was the lowest in a decade, and Heo says local resentment likely played a part in that.
“The New Orleans movement (Boycott Bowl) could have lowered ratings one or two percent, perhaps a little bit more. But, we need to look at it and study more about it.”
It’s reportedly the lowest Nielsen ratings for a Super Bowl in New Orleans ever, and Heo says that’s likely cause for concern at the local CBS affiliates, and those who bought air time with them, who just a three weeks ago would have expected to be airing their product for over half of the city…
“The local marketers, especially in the New Orleans market, may start to become worried about the performance of their advertising campaign.”
It cost 5.2 million dollars to air a 30 second commercial nationally, and there were 92 ads run in total.
