• by Wayne Friedman , February 8, 2010

For the third year in a row, the Super Bowl has hit a record in average total viewership, now up 8% to 106.5 million viewers.

The close game won by the New Orleans Saints over the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17, also hit a record in total households -- 51.7 million. The previous record was held by the "M.A.S.H." finale, which had 50.2 million homes.

A year ago, the 2009 Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers- Arizona Cardinals pulled 98.7 million viewers. This overtook the previous year's total viewership record, in which the New York Giants-New England Patriots game had 97.4 million viewers.

The 2008 Super Bowl broke a 12-year record set in 1996 when the Dallas Cowboys played the Pittsburgh Steelers, and had 94.0 million viewers.

Two of the best-rated individual TV markets were the markets of the two teams in the game: New Orleans and Indianapolis. New Orleans earned a 56.3 household rating/82 share, the best of all TV markets. Indianapolis came in fourth place with a 54.2 household rating/80 share.

Washington, D.C. came in second with a 56 rating/73 share; Nashville was in third place at 54.4 rating/73 share. Nielsen says a major winter storm in D.C. kept viewers in their homes, which pushed up viewership.

Nielsen's BuzzMetrics service, which looks at consumer sentiment after the game, gave Doritos the highest brand buzz level of any Super Bowl advertising, with an 11% share; Google's 60-second unannounced commercial put the digital company in second place at 10.2%.

Coming in at third place was the controversial ad from "Focus on the Family," featuring college football player Tim Tebow. It grabbed 9.6% of advertiser buzz, which Nielsen says was considerably less that the levels it received before the Super Bowl.

TOP FIVE MOST WATCHED SUPER BOWLS OF ALL TIME

Source: The Nielsen Company

* Live + Same Day Viewing Estimates Include DVR Playback On The Same Day, Defined As 3AM-3AM

TOP 5 LOCAL MARKETS, SUPER BOWL XLIV

Source: The Nielsen Company