Although the
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
is consistently one of the most watched television programs in the United States annually,
broadcasters have sometimes attempted to intentionally
counterprogram against it 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
Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in ...
program ''
In Living Color'' during halftime at
Super Bowl XXVI
Super Bowl XXVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Buffalo Bills to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion f ...
, 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
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...
acts to perform at future Super Bowl halftime shows to compete.
Most broadcasters would typically air
rerun
A rerun or repeat is a rebroadcast of an episode of a radio or television program. The two types of reruns are those that occur during a hiatus and those that occur when a program is syndicated.
Variations
In the United Kingdom, the word "repe ...
s of existing programming or sometimes as
marathon
The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...
s, prior to and during the game; in recent years, as all four major networks broadcast NFL games to an extent (all of them alternate airing the game yearly) the networks not airing the Super Bowl rarely broadcast new programming against it in an effort to protect the game's viewership as a sign of respect, to the point that the broadcast rights to
Super Bowl LV and
LVI were swapped to prevent a CBS-broadcast Super Bowl LVI from competing with the
2022 Winter Olympics
The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Beijing 2022 (2022), were an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beijing, China, and surrounding areas wit ...
on NBC. Some pay-TV channels and digital platforms still attempt to air original programming intended as an alternative to halftime or the game itself (such as
Animal Planet
Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel focusing on the animal kingdom owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1 ...
's annual ''
Puppy Bowl'' special). Episodes of ''Puppy Bowl'' run all day long with the new episodes airing both before, during and after the Super Bowl. The Hallmark channel has an annual, on-demand program called
Kitten Bowl' that starts airing around the time of the Super Bowl and ''Puppy Bowl''. The kittens also do the half-time show at ''Puppy Bowl''.
History
In the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of Super Bowl halftime shows were themed,
musical
Musical is the adjective of music.
Musical may also refer to:
* Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance
* Musical film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...
spectacles that often featured
marching band
A marching band is a group of instrumental musicians who play while marching. Historically they were used in armed forces and many marching bands remain military bands. Others are still associated with military units or emulate a military sty ...
s 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 derided for being dated and out of touch with modern
popular culture
Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art f. pop art
F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet.
F may also refer to:
Science and technology Mathematics
* F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems
* ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function
* F-distributi ...
or mass art, sometimes contraste ...
.
Super Bowl counterprogramming was first popularized by
Fox. As an alternative, the then-fledgling Fox network aired a special live episode of its popular sketch comedy show ''
In Living Color'' during halftime at
Super Bowl XXVI
Super Bowl XXVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Buffalo Bills to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion f ...
(which featured a halftime show entitled "Winter Magic", a
Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympic Games (), also known as the Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held i ...
-themed show starring
Gloria Estefan
Gloria María Milagrosa Estefan (; ; born September 1, 1957) is an American singer, actress, and businesswoman. Estefan is an eight-time Grammy Awards, Grammy Award winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and has been named one of t ...
,
Brian Boitano, and
Dorothy Hamill to tie into CBS's upcoming broadcast of the Games).
The live episode featured football-themed sketches (such as ''
Men on Football''), 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
Frito-Lay, Inc. (; ) is an American food company that manufactures, markets, and sells snack foods. It began in the early 1930s as two companies, Fritos, the Frito Company and Lay's, H.W. Lay & Company, that merged in 1961. Frito-Lay itself merg ...
, who paid $2 million to hold all national advertising time, and to help budget and promote the special; the effort included a $1 million giveaway, whose winner was announced during the broadcast. 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 special drew more than 25 million viewers away from the Super Bowl;
Nielsen estimated that CBS lost 10 ratings points and more than a fifth of its total viewership 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 in 1993, the NFL began to invite major
pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...
performers to perform during the halftime show. The first of these, featuring
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, one of the most culturally significan ...
, led to a dramatic increase in viewership between halvesthe first in the game's history. Later that year, Fox
acquired rights to the NFL's
National Football Conference
The National Football Conference (NFC) is a conference of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference (AFC), each h ...
(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 major cycling American broadcasters of the Super Bowl itself - and so far the only non-
Big Three U.S. media group to hold
NFL broadcast rights.
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 has complimented the absolute dominance of the Super Bowl in annual U.S. television viewership since it started holding the overall top ratings spot in
1999
1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons.
Events January
* January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers.
* January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...
. Besides a string of halftime shows from 2005 to 2010 that featured veteran
rock acts in the wake of the
Super Bowl XXXVIII "wardrobe malfunction", the practice of inviting pop acts to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show has continued.
The
Super Bowl LVII halftime show featuring
Rihanna
Robyn Rihanna Fenty ( ; born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, businesswoman, and actress. One of the List of music artists by net worth, wealthiest musicians in the world, List of awards and nominations received by Rihanna, her vario ...
was seen by more than 121 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 alternate airing the Super Bowl yearly,
Phil Rosenthal of the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
'' 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 the practice was now obsolete, 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
''Til Death'' is an American sitcom that aired on Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox from September 7, 2006, to June 20, 2010. The series was created by husband and wife team Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, who were also the writers and executive pr ...
'' during the game; Fox had been burning off the fourth season of the low-rated sitcom in unconventional time slots (such as having aired a marathon of four new episodes on Christmas Day
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A liturgical feast central to Christianity, Chri ...
), so its distributor would have enough episodes for syndication.[ The league's cable channel ]NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...
also suspends programming during the game, instead airing a live scoreboard and a simulcast of the game's radio broadcast under the title ''Super Bowl Game Center''.
Counterprogramming efforts are not limited to television; for Super Bowl XLV in 2011, WCHK-FM, a station in the Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in Brown County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the head of Green Bay (Lake Michigan), Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the F ...
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 has also expanded to the internet; Jewish radio personality Nachum Segal has organized an annual ''Kosher Halftime Show'' for streaming via his Nachum Segal Network, featuring performances by Jewish musicians. The special was recorded in Atlanta for 2019, marking the first time it was held in the Super Bowl's host city. In 2015, YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
streamed an alternative, online halftime show featuring notable personalities from the video sharing service.[ In 2019, the '' Super Smash Bros.'' video game tournament Genesis 6 had top-8 rounds overlapping with Super Bowl LIII, which '']Shacknews
''Shacknews'' is an American video game journalism website founded in 1996. It that publishes news articles, reviews, and cheat codes.
History
''Shacknews'' was founded in 1996 by Steve Gibson. The website, originally named 'Quakeholio', was ...
'' noted were either "intentional or completely by accident".
For the first time in the history of the game, Super Bowl LVI in 2022 fell during an ongoing Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympic Games (), also known as the Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held i ...
, the 2022 Winter Olympics
The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Beijing 2022 (2022), were an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beijing, China, and surrounding areas wit ...
in Beijing. In order to prevent the possibility that NBC would have to counterprogram CBS's telecast of the game with primetime coverage of these Olympics (which would dilute viewership and advertising sales), NBC agreed to trade 2021's Super Bowl LV to CBS in favor of Super Bowl LVI—thus giving NBC rights to both the 2022 Winter Olympics and Super Bowl LVI. NBC thus suspended its coverage of the Olympics in favor of pre-game coverage for the Super Bowl (and moved its daytime coverage that day to air in the morning before the pre-game coverage began), before resuming with primetime coverage as its lead-out. CBS, its sister premium channel Showtime, and HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
, did air new episodes of ''Celebrity Big Brother'' (which averaged five episodes per-week), '' Billions'', and ''Euphoria
Euphoria ( ) is the experience (or affect) of pleasure or excitement and intense feelings of well-being and happiness. Certain natural rewards and social activities, such as aerobic exercise, laughter, listening to or making music and da ...
'' respectively on the night of the game; HBO announced that ''Euphoria'' had achieved a series high of 5.1 million viewers, although this included viewership across both HBO and its on-demand streaming platform HBO Max
Max (known in other countries as, and soon to be reverted globally to HBO Max) is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. It is a proprietary unit of Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming on behalf of Home Box Of ...
.
This scenario was ratified by the addition of ABC as a fourth Super Bowl broadcaster in the NFL's next television contract; NBC now televises future Super Bowl games held in Winter Olympic years.
List of notable Super Bowl halftime counterprograms
In regards to original programming, recurring Super Bowl counters have included Animal Planet
Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel focusing on the animal kingdom owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1 ...
'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
The Legends Cup, originally known as the Lingerie Bowl, was the championship game of the LFL—originally the Lingerie Football League and later the Legends Football League—which operated from 2009 to 2019. It was a game of full-contact American ...
'', a series of pay-per-view
Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast.
Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program ...
broadcasts of all-female football games played in lingerie
Lingerie (, , ) is a category of primarily women's clothing including undergarments (mainly brassieres), sleepwear, and lightweight robes. The choice of the word is often motivated by an intention to imply that the garments are alluring, fashio ...
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
MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...
was a recurring provider of counterprogramming, having scheduled new episodes of ''Beavis and Butt-head
''Beavis and Butt-Head'' is an American Adult animation, adult animated Animated sitcom, sitcom created by Mike Judge. The series follows Beavis and Butt-Head, both voiced by Judge, a pair of teenage slackers characterized by their apathy, Stupi ...
'' against the halftime show on multiple occasions. In 1998, MTV aired a pilot episode
A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie) in United Kingdom and United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television netwo ...
for a new stop-motion animated series, ''Celebrity Deathmatch
''Celebrity Deathmatch'' is an adult stop-motion claymated series created by Eric Fogel and produced by John Worth Lynn Jr. for MTV. A parody of sports entertainment programs, ''Celebrity Deathmatch'' depicted various celebrities engaging ...
''. In the spirit of the Super Bowl airings, its official premiere in May 1998 was scheduled to air on the same night as the series finale of ''Seinfeld
''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, with a total of nine seasons consisting of List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It ...
''.[
On several occasions, the ]professional wrestling
Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to Real life, real- ...
promotion WWF (now WWE) broadcast special halftime editions of its Sunday-night program on USA Network
USA Network (or simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It was launched in 1977 as Madison Square Garden Sports Network, one of the first national sports ...
at the time, '' Sunday Night Heat'', dubbed '' Halftime Heat''. The concept was revived for Super Bowl LIII by WWE's NXT brand as a streaming special on WWE Network
WWE Network is a subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and digital television network owned by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE, a division of TKO Group Holdings.
The service relied on technology develo ...
and other platforms, featuring the premiere of a 6-man tag-team match at halftime, as well as a marathon of classic NXT matches.
On the day of the Super Bowl, cable channel
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...
s often air special, and sometimes themed marathons of existing programming prior to and/or during the game, such as Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...
having aired a marathon of '' 2 Stupid Dogs'' that it dubbed the "Stupid Bowl",[ ]DIY Network
Magnolia Network is an American basic cable network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery in partnership with Chip and Joanna Gaines, the founders of lifestyle company Magnolia. It broadcasts personality-based lifestyle programs related to topics ...
broadcasting a marathon of bathroom-related programming known as the " Toilet Bowl",[ a "Poppy Bowl" marathon of '' Dr. Pimple Popper'' on ]TLC
TLC may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Television
* ''TLC'' (TV series), a 2002 British situational comedy television series that aired on BBC2
* TLC (TV network), formerly the Learning Channel, an American cable TV network
** TLC (Asia), an A ...
that additionally featured behind-the-scenes content and updates on featured patients, and during Super Bowl XLV, Canadian network Global
Global may refer to:
General
*Globe, a spherical model of celestial bodies
*Earth, the third planet from the Sun
Entertainment
* ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003
* ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007
* ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 198 ...
airing a marathon of ''Glee
Glee may refer to:
* Glee (music), a type of English choral music
* ''Glee'' (TV series), an American musical comedy-drama TV series, and related media created by Ryan Murphy
* ''Glee'' (Bran Van 3000 album)
* ''Glee'' (Logan Lynn album)
* Gle ...
,'' and ''Glee''-themed episodes of ''The Simpsons'' and ''The Office
''The Office'' is the title of several mockumentary sitcoms based on a British series originally created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant as '' The Office'' in 2001. The original series also starred Gervais as manager and primary charac ...
'' (" Elementary School Musical" and " Viewing Party") as a lead-in for " The Sue Sylvester Shuffle" after the game (competing network CTV is the Canadian rightsholder of the NFL and Super Bowl, but not ''Glee'').
See also
* Counterprogramming (film distribution)
* List of Super Bowl commercials
References
{{Super Bowl
Lists of American television series
Counterprogramming
Counterprogramming
Counterprogramming