The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' rout of the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl drew a total audience of 96.4 million viewers.
CBS said Tuesday the audience included record digital numbers for a game that had lost its competitive edge by halftime — Tampa Bay won 31-9 — and was marked by limited watch parties because of the pandemic.
The most watched Super Bowl was in 2015. The New England-Seattle game drew 114.4 million viewers.
CBS said Sunday's championship was the most live-streamed NFL game, averaging 5.7 million viewers per minute, up 65% from last year's Super Bowl. It was also the first NFL game to deliver more than 1 billion total streaming minutes.
Kansas City led all metered markets with a 59.9 rating, an increase of 8% over its Super Bowl rating from last year. The Boston market, buoyed by Tampa Bay and ex-Patriot quarterback Tom Brady, was second at 57. Tampa was third at 52.3
The total viewership came across all platforms, including the CBS Television Network, CBS Sports and NFL digital properties, Buccaneers and Chiefs mobile properties, Verizon Media mobile properties and ESPN Deportes television and digital properties.
California governor signs law to protect children from social media addiction
California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Friday.
California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform's algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children's access to social media, but they have faced challenges in court.
The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users' personal information in ways that could harm children. It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impacts of social media on the well-being of children.
"Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children โ isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night," Newsom said in a statement. "With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits."
The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children's accounts to private by default.
Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their... Read More