Super Bowl lead-off programs: a retrospect

By Robert Rinaldo
Entertainment Editor

The Super Bowl is considered by many to be the largest event in sporting history. Every year, fans wait in anticipation for the two teams that duke it out to be declared the champion team.

But if we really look at the big picture, the Super Bowl is more than a sporting event. Since it”s inception on Jan. 15, 1967, the Super Bowl has evolved into a massive staple in entertainment. From the high energy halftime shows to the sometimes overproduced commercials, there is no doubt that the Super Bowl is just as much of a media platform than it is a sporting event

One interesting factor of the Super Bowl happens after the game finishes: the lead-out programs. Since the first competition, it has been tradition to feature a show directly after the game.

Just as the Super Bowl is typically the highest-rated U.S. television broadcast of any given year, the program aired immediately following coverage of the game in the U.S. is typically also one of the year”s most watched shows.

The judges of “The Voice” from left to right: Cee Lo Green,
 Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine, and Blake Shelton.
The Super Bowl lead-out is typically aired across most U.S. markets simultaneously, and is usually one hour in length. Originally, it was common for longer programs to broadcast after the game because kickoff was at an earlier time.

When the game moved toward its standard kickoff time of just after 6 p.m., the game and its post-game programming would be scheduled until 10, allowing for only one hour of programming until the late local news.

These programs are almost inevitably delayed, due to the extended length of the pre-game, halftime and post-game festivities. It is common for affiliates in the home markets of the competing teams to delay the lead-out show further, until after additional local post-game coverage.

During the mid 1980s ad 1990s, the slot was used to showcase a new series or movie, such as “The A-Team” or “The Wonder Years,” or broadcast a special episode of an “up-and-coming” series. Unfortunately, many of the series were ultimately unsuccessful, with some being canceled within a matter of weeks such as “MacGruder and Loud.”

Since then, virtually all of the programs in the post-game-timeslot have been special episodes of series that had already aired for at least one season, such as “Glee” after last year”s Super Bowl.

Despite the fact that Fox almost never programs time slots after 10:00 pm, except on Saturdays, Fox has aired lead-out programming after the Super Bowl ever since it began airing them in 1997, preempting local newscasts.

Currently, a regular-length episode of a drama series will usually air, although in some cases a one-hour episode of a sitcom, or two episodes of different sitcoms paired together, may air instead. Quite often the selected series is one of the “prestige” shows for the network showing the game that year, or a moderate hit, such as “The X-Files,” “Criminal Minds” and Grey”s Anatomy,” which the network wants to give a higher profile.

“The Simpsons” have aired in the slot twice, with both airings being paired with the premieres of animated sitcoms, “Family Guy” in 1999 and “American Dad!” in 2005.

An occasional practice used to maximize the effect of the lead-out is to make the Super Bowl episode a cliffhanger, with a story that concludes later in the week in the program”s regularly scheduled timeslot.
This year, the Super Bowl lead-out program was the season premiere of “The Voice,” an American reality talent show on NBC. The show scored the best rating for a show following the game since 2006, when ABC aired an episode of “Grey”s Anatomy.”

The show”s 16.3 rating among 18 to 49-year-old viewers overshadowed the performance last year of “Glee” on Fox, which scored only an 11.1 rating. “The Voice” also attracted 37.6 million viewers, 40 percent better than the 26.8 pulled in by “Glee.”

As the years go on and more Super Bowls play out, it will be interesting to see if future lead-out programs can meet the same success as “The Voice,” or if they will sink into mediocrity.