Super Bowl falls short of record

Sunday's 50th Super Bowl was a milestone, but it didn't shatter any ratings records.

The game, telecast on CBS, averaged 111.9 million viewers, down about 2% from the record 114.4 million haul last year. It might have been expected for many considered a sluggish game, in which the Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers by 24-10. The game peaked early, between 8:30 and 9 p.m. ET, with 115.5 million viewers in that half-hour.

Another 4 million watched a livestream on various devices, CBS says. Sixty million chatted about the game on Facebook. And 3.8 million people sent 16.9 million tweets about the game on Twitter.

Following the post-game, a special live episode of Late Show with Stephen Colbert averaged 21.1 million, according to preliminary Nielsens. That was down from last year's The Blacklist and 2014's New Girl/Brooklyn Nine-Nine combo, but slightly above CBS's last post-Super Bowl performance, an episode of Elementary in 2003, that drew 20.8 million following a game that averaged 108.7 million.

Late Show started, well, late, at 10:54 p.m. ET, and thanks to its enormous lead-in, still delivered (by far) the show's biggest-ever audience, including all of its years with David Letterman. But the number has to be considered something of a disappointment in the network's bid to attract new viewers to the show, which was loaded up with celebrity guests including Tina Fey and Will Ferrell.

The all-time high for a post-Super Bowl series remains an episode of NBC's Friends in 1996, with 52.9 million viewers, followed by the second-season premiere of CBS's Survivor, in 2001, with 43.4 million.

And just 5 million viewers stuck around at 12:37 a.m. ET for a special Sunday episode of the Late Late Show with James Corden, still a record for that show since its inception in 1995.