• by Wayne Friedman , January 23, 2012

For some TV viewers, with the NFL's conference championships now completed, we are more than halfway to the Super Bowl.

Fox says the overtime NFC Championship game between the New York Giants/San Francisco 49ers pulled in 57.6 million viewers -- which is a little more than half the viewers the Super Bowl has been getting in recent years. The Super Bowl in 2011 won by the Green Bay Packers holds the record for most TV viewers for the game (as well as the most viewers for any single U.S. TV program in history) with 111 million viewers.

For its part, CBS had its best total viewership numbers in 30 years with the AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens, averaging 48.7 million viewers.

Fox says the Giants-49ers game ranks as the third most watched Conference Championship game ever -- after the 1982 Cowboys- 49ers NFC Championship Game, 68.7 million viewers on CBS, and 2010’s overtime Vikings-Saints NFC Championship game, 57.9 million viewers on Fox.