Fox did a solid job of driving viewers to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and (especially) New Girl on Sunday following Super Bowl XLVIII. Twenty-six million watched Zooey Deschannel get weird with Prince (more than watched The Office, The Simpsons, Alias or The Practice), while a series-high 15 million stuck around to see Andy Samberg’s Golden Globe-winning new comedy.
This was a good move because it took two shows with critical buzz and some star power that were flailing in the ratings, and gave viewers a chance to re-sample them. There are many different ways to program that coveted timeslot that the four major networks have tried over the years. But which has been most successful? Let’s go network-by-network.
ABC
No longer in the game, ABC broadcast its final Super Bowl in 2006, with a then-young program called Grey’s Anatomy. It brought 37 million viewers in following Super Bowl XL, a level no scripted show has maintained since. It turned an already popular new series into a phenomenon, and it was especially successful, given that it featured a cliffhanger solved in next Thursday’s episode.
ABC’s other choices… are a mixed bag. Alias‘ famous post-Super Bowl show remains the lowest-rated post-Super Bowl program ever, though that same night they did successfully launch Jimmy Kimmel Live. ABC simply kept a new episode of The Practice in its regular Sunday timeslot in 2000 to lukewarm numbers. Hell, The Wonder Years premiered out of the Super Bowl in 1988.
Then there are outright failures. Remember Extreme, starring James Brolin? Or Davis Rules, starring Randy Quaid and Jonathan Winters? The Aaron Spelling drama MacGruder and Loud ring a bell? Because those are the remaining ABC post-Super Bowl shows, and none of them have more than 22 episodes to their name. Sadly, we won’t get to see what ABC picks again anytime for at least the next decade.
CBS
It would shock no one to suggest that CBS plays it safest after the big game. Using Elementary, an unproven scripted series, as the lead-out to last year’s tilt was probably their biggest risk in a while. Other than Criminal Minds (which was already a hit when it aired after the 2007 game) CBS hadn’t used a scripted program following the Super Bowl since 1990.
In the meantime, it’s been Survivor season premieres and the pilot of Undercover Boss, all of which were huge successes. CBS did not broadcast the game between 1993 and 2000. In 1992, a brief edition of 60 Minutes that featured an interview with the Clintons, as well as 48 Hours, followed the game.
60 Minutes is featured quite a bit in the history of the program, along with episodes of Lassie. Everything else (Hard Copy, Airwolf, The New Perry Mason) is fairly unremarkable. CBS’ lone real triumph might be a late-season All in The Family episode, which topped 35 million viewers in 1978.
Fox
New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine included, Fox has probably used the Super Bowl most to build up small-scale hits in an attempt to make them bigger. House, Glee, Malcolm in the Middle and The X-Files have all been a part of that tradition and Fox has been largely successful in their plan.
The Super Bowl also gave birth to the Seth MacFarlane empire. Both Family Guy and American Dad aired their pilots in 1999 and 2005. Both were bookended by episodes of The Simpsons. (It would truly shock me if The Simpsons never aired after the Super Bowl again.) Overall, Fox has been largely successful airing things after the big game, as none of the aformentioned series (aside from the 2014 entrants) aired fewer than five seasons.
NBC
NBC has both wild successes and spectacular failures coming out of the Super Bowl. They own Friends, which is the most-watched show to follow the game ever, with 52 million viewers. They also have The Good Life and The John Larroquette Show, which premiered out of the game just two years earlier and have never been heard from again.
The peacock has aired two Super Bowls since regaining rights to the NFL, and they’ve followed them up with episodes of The Office and The Voice, two established hits they helped make bigger. After the 2012 Super Bowl they also broadcast Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which continued his late-night ascension.
In the old era, NBC had a pretty solid run aside from Larroquette and The Good Life. Friends, Homicide and 3rd Rock From the Sun were all either popular or well-liked by viewers in the 1990s. The 80s were mixed, with successful shows (CHiPs and The A-Team) and not-so-successful shows (The Last Precinct) as well as the first half of a TV movie. They played it fairly safe with movies and news programs throughout the early Super Bowl era.
