Rose Bowl draws record TV audience

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A record 35.6 million TV viewers
tuned in to see the University of Texas narrowly defeat the
University of Southern California in the Rose Bowl college
football championship game, Nielsen Media Research reported on
Thursday.

The down-to-the-wire 41-38 Texas Longhorn victory on
Wednesday night over the USC Trojans was the most watched
college bowl game since the start of Nielsen’s electronic
database 15 years ago.

The game also produced the highest ratings among viewers
aged 18 to 49 — the demographic most prized by advertisers —
of any bowl game on record, Nielsen said.

Compared with last year’s national championship college
football game, USC’s 2005 Orange Bowl victory over Oklahoma,
the Texas-USC matchup at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena drew 14.2
million more viewers and 73 percent higher ratings among adults
18-49.

This year’s Rose Bowl also compared favorably to other
high-profile sporting events, yielding higher numbers than any
World Series baseball championship game since 2001. And it was
the most-watched football game — college or professional —
during the past 15 years on ABC, which through this season was
home of the weekly marquee Monday Night Football broadcast.

ABC is a unit of the Walt Disney Co.