Super Bowl XLIII fell short of last year’s smash audiences, but retained strong numbers on Sunday for CTV and RDS in a nail-biter that handed the Pittsburgh Steelers its record-breaking sixth championship.

The four-hour-plus telecast clocked in at 3.6 million viewers on CTV, while RDS nabbed 691,000 for the Steelers’ 27-23 victory over the Arizona Cardinals. The numbers are down 14% on CTV versus last year’s record-breaking 4.2 million eyeballs, while RDS saw a 24% decline (all numbers 2+).

The game peaked at 4.3 million viewers combined on the Canuck broadcasters at 10:02 pm when Pittsburgh’s Santonio Holmes scored a touchdown with 42 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

In the US, Super Bowl XLIII scored 95 million viewers on NBC and was the second most-watched final in US history. The numbers were down 2% from last year’s Giants/Patriots match-up which averaged 97 million viewers on Fox.

Over on CBC, the NHL All-Star Game in Montreal garnered 1.5 million viewers on Jan. 25 – its highest audience in nine years – while the All-Star skills competition averaged 1.3 million. The numbers mark a more than 30% increase over last year’s event in Atlanta.

The news was also good for CBC’s The Rick Mercer Report, which nabbed a season-high 1.2 million viewers last week, while reality show The Week the Women Went topped the 1 million mark for the first time on Wednesday.

From Playback Daily