Bell Media says Super Bowl LVI – featuring the Los Angeles Rams besting the Cincinnati Bengals and a half-time show of superstar rap legends – is the biggest broadcast event of the year, but the downward trend in TV audiences has continued from recent years.

An average audience of 8.1 million tuned into the Sunday night spectacle, according to preliminary data from Numeris, with 16.9 million unique Canadian viewers – nearly half the country’s population – watching at least some of the broadcast on CTV, TSN or RDS.

However, the average audience was a slight drop from last year’s 8.8 million average viewers, and a precipitous drop from the 2019 tally of 9.5 million. The game was still touted by Bell as the biggest TV broadcast of the year, something media buyers anticipated regardless of if audiences fell.

Last year’s dip in TV viewers did come with an uptick in the number of people who streamed the game. Sports streamer DAZN said it had a 19% year-over-year increase in viewership. Bell did not release any of its streaming figures for the Super Bowl, but did say that live streamed viewership was up 34% year-over-year for the entirety of the NFL season.

TV audiences peaked at 11.4 million viewers during the halftime show, featuring hip hop legends Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and a surprise appearance by 50 Cent. This was a slight improvement from the 11 million that tuned in during The Weeknd’s half-time spot the previous year.

Super Bowl LVI content also accounted for 5.5 million views between TSN’s various social media platforms, including three million viewers on TikTok alone.

In the U.S., Super Bowl ratings managed to turn around, averaging 112.3 million viewers, up from 96.4 million viewers the year prior – though those numbers include both linear TV and streaming viewers.