Although it is consistently one of the most watched television programs in the United States annually, broadcasters have sometimes attempted to intentionally counterprogram against the Super Bowl by running new programming against the game as an alternative, such as special episodes of existing series, one-off special presentations, and previews of new series, typically during its halftime break.
The most prominent success of the concept came in 1992, when Fox broadcast a special, live edition of its sketch comedy program In Living Color during halftime at Super Bowl XXVI, taking advantage of the then-unpopular format of Super Bowl halftime shows. The special drew 22 million viewers, prompting the NFL to book more prominent pop music acts to perform at future Super Bowl halftime shows to compete.
Broadcasters who do not air original programming against the Super Bowl will typically air reruns of existing programming--sometimes as marathons, prior to and during the game; in recent years, as they all broadcast NFL games or have ties to an outlet who does--and three of them alternate airing the game yearly--the United States' four major television networks have rarely broadcast new programming against the Super Bowl in an effort to protect the game's viewership as a sign of respect.
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History
in the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of Super Bowl halftime shows were themed, musical spectacles that often featured marching bands and performance ensembles such as Up with People (who performed in four Super Bowl halftime shows between 1976 and 1986 and performed at the pre-game show of Super Bowl XXV in 1991). The group's halftime shows were described as being "wholesome" and "inoffensive" by critics, but were frequently lambasted for being dated and out of touch with modern popular culture--through this era, halftime shows involving Up With People received heavy critical derision.
Super Bowl counterprogramming was first popularized by Fox. As an alternative, the then-fledging Fox network aired a special live episode of its popular sketch comedy show In Living Color during halftime at Super Bowl XXVI (which featured a halftime show entitled "Winter Magic", a Winter Olympics-themed show starring Gloria Estefan, Brian Boitano, and Dorothy Hamill to tie into CBS's upcoming broadcast of the Games). The live episode featured football-themed sketches (such as a football version of the recurring Men on...), a performance by Color Me Badd, and a clock counting down to the start of the third quarter. The episode was sponsored by Frito-Lay, who paid $2 million to hold all national advertising time, and to help budget and promote the special. The special also included the announcement of a million-dollar winner in an accompanying contest. A CBS executive felt that the concept was "cute", but dismissed concerns that the ambush would have any major impact on the viewership of the Super Bowl. The Fox live special ended up earning between 20 million and 25 million viewers away from the Super Bowl. Nielsen estimated that CBS lost 10 ratings points during halftime as a result of the special.
The unexpected success of the In Living Color special prompted the NFL to heighten the halftime show's profile to help retain viewership; beginning at Super Bowl XXVII, the league began to invite major pop music performers to perform during the halftime show starting for the 1992 season title game. The first of these, featuring Michael Jackson, led to a dramatic increase in viewership between halves--the first in the game's history. In December 1993, Fox acquired rights to the NFL's National Football Conference (NFC), replacing CBS, beginning in the 1994 season. The acquisition was a notable coup which helped to establish Fox's position as a major network in its own right, and made Fox one of the three cycling broadcasters of the Super Bowl itself.
From the 1992 season onwards, the NFL has continued to stay true to its goal of ensuring that the halftime show is as much of a spectacle as the game itself, which had complimented the absolute dominance of the Super Bowl on TV ratings. The league continually recruited pop superstars until 2005; after an incident occurred at Super Bowl XXXVIII's halftime show where Justin Timberlake briefly exposed one of Janet Jackson's breasts, a string of subsequent halftime shows featuring a single, headlining act--typically veteran rock acts such as The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen)--were held instead, until the return of pop acts in 2011. The Super Bowl XLIX halftime show featuring Katy Perry was seen by 118.5 million viewers, as part of an overall telecast that was the most-watched television broadcast in American history.
As all four major U.S. television networks currently have ties to the NFL and broadcast its games (CBS, Fox, and NBC alternate airing the Super Bowl yearly and air regular season games, and ABC's parent company owns ESPN, which broadcasts Monday Night Football during the regular season, and has simulcast its wild card playoff game on ABC since 2016), Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune believed that there was now "zero likelihood some broadcast network is going to launch a broadside against the NFL's showcase.", while a GQ writer argued that there was no longer any incentive for the major networks to counterprogram, due to the larger number of media options that have emerged since. As such, the networks not airing the game will typically air reruns of existing programs. Fox provided an exception in 2010, when it aired new episodes of 'Til Death during the game as part of its effort to quietly burn off the series in unconventional time slots (such as having aired a marathon of four new episodes on Christmas Day), in order to reach enough episodes for syndication.
Counterprogramming efforts are not limited to television; for Super Bowl XLV in 2011, WCHK-FM, a station in the Green Bay, Wisconsin area announced it would counterprogram the game with dead air, since the hometown Packers were in the game. However, its goal was not to attract listeners from the game, but to do the opposite. The freeform program Anything Anything with Rich Russo has counterprogrammed the Super Bowl with Dr. Demento. Counterprogramming expanded to the internet in 2015, when YouTube announced that it would broadcast an alternative, online halftime show featuring notable personalities from the video sharing service.
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List of notable Super Bowl halftime counterprograms
In regards to original programming, recurring Super Bowl counters have included Animal Planet's annual Puppy Bowl, a special featuring dogs at play in a model football stadium (which itself spawned imitators--the Kitten Bowl and Fish Bowl, in 2014), and the Lingerie Bowl, a series of pay-per-view broadcasts of all-female football games played in lingerie--proving popular enough to be expanded into its own Lingerie Football League with the Lingerie Bowl as its championship game. The LFL was later re-launched as a conventional women's football league, the Legends Football League, and moved its season to run during the NFL off-season instead.
During the 1990s, MTV was a recurring provider of counterprogramming, having scheduled new episodes of Beavis and Butt-head against the halftime show on multiple occasions. In 1998 and 1999, MTV aired "Deathbowl" episodes of a new stop-motion animated series, Celebrity Deathmatch, which features celebrities competing in wrestling bouts. The 1998 airing was followed by a series premiere in May: in the spirit of the Super Bowl airings, it was scheduled to air against the series finale of Seinfeld.
On the day of the Super Bowl, cable channels often air special, and sometimes themed marathons of existing programming prior to and/or during the game, such as Cartoon Network having aired a marathon of 2 Stupid Dogs that it dubbed the "Stupid Bowl", and DIY Network broadcasting a marathon of bathroom-related programming known as the "Toilet Bowl". During Super Bowl XLV, as Canadian Super Bowl broadcaster CTV did not hold rights to Fox's lead-out Glee, series rightsholder Global aired a marathon of Glee-themed programming (including previous episodes, and Glee-themed episodes of other series) against the game to lead into the simulcast of the new episode "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle" after the game.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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