Ratings: Super Bowl XLIX Draws Record 114.4 Million; Blacklist Holds 26.5 Mil

More bad news for Pete Carroll: A record audience watched the embattled Seahawks coach make the worst call in football history.

Sunday’s Super Bowl XLIX, featuring the Patriots’ wild, down-to-the-wire 28-24 win over the Seahawks, drew 114.4 million total viewers, besting last year’s game (112.2 million) to claim the title of most-watched television program in U.S. history.

Leading out of the Super Bowl, The Blacklist retained 26.5 million viewers with an 8.7 demo rating, topping the drama’s previous highs by 111 and 129 percent, hitting 10-year audience highs for a scripted NBC program and marking the most watched scripted broadcast program in more than three years (since Ashton Kutcher’s Two and a Half Men debut, which drew 28.7 mil).

NBC’s post-Super Bowl edition of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (9.8 million/3.6) stands as the talker’s No. 2 telecast in both measures, trailing only its year-ago Olympics-boosted launch. It’s also the most-watched post-Super Bowl late-night talk show outing in the history of Nielsen People Meters (dating back to September 1987).

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