• by Paul Gough , January 27, 2004

Few programming events are as closely associated with their advertising as the Super Bowl, but research from a major media shop finds that despite the heavy dose of high-profile commercials, the Super Bowl is a relatively uncluttered--and high-rated--advertising environment.

The study, released this week by Interpublic's Initiative Media unit, found that the 2003 Super Bowl was tops in audience retention and ratings, and was runner-up in tallies of the least amount of advertising clutter by only one program in the 2002-03 TV season. Initiative, a unit of Interpublic Group of Cos., released the report Monday.

The 2003 Super Bowl, held on Feb. 1, delivered a 40.7 household rating on ABC, and had only 16.5 percent non-program minutes. That compared, for instance, with the 2002 World Series (12.8 household rating/19 percent clutter); the Stanley Cup (2.9 household rating/21.7 percent clutter); and the NBA finals (6.5 household rating/21.5 percent clutter). The Super Bowl had almost twice as many viewers as the NFC championship game that year, yet it still had less clutter: The NFC championship had 17.3 percent non-program minutes, Initiative found.

Only one special-event program--the 2003 Academy Awards--had less clutter: Only 13.5 percent of the telecast was non-program minutes. The Oscars telecast, which was also broadcast on ABC just like the Super Bowl, had only half the audience of the Super Bowl. Initiative's study said that the clutter data might have been low because of advertiser hesitancy resulting from the war in Iraq, which occurred during the Oscars telecast.

The Super Bowl, Initiative said, has similar results year to year.

Initiative also found that in the larger sense, special-event programming on the networks, like the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards, still stands out.

"Initiative has conducted analyses of special events over the last few years, consistently finding that specials retain a high degree of the program audience during commercial breaks," Initiative said in its report. Ninety-five percent of the audience stays with the commercials, which are almost as popular as the game itself. Or maybe more.

"The Super Bowl offers an environment in which viewers focus more on the commercials than on the programming, and that value cannot solely be quantified in numerical analysis," Initiative said.