False Claim(s)!

Sunday the Ragister ran a house ad, or self promotion, that stated "More People Will Read The Register Today Than Will Watch The Big Game".

They then stated, "With a combined print and online audience of 587,878 readers, The Des Moines Register is a tremendous scoring opportunity".

The ad and its claims are as clear as mud and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Sunday's Super Bowl (XLIV) was the most-watched program in U.S. television history, Nielsen estimated Monday that 106.5 million people watched the Super Bowl on average and 151.6 million tuned in overall.

It will take awhile for the numbers to be in for Central Iowa, per KCCI not until the end of March, but let's just look at some history.

For Super Bowl XLII in 2008, around 465,000 viewers watched the game (per KDSM FOX 17).

Per WHO, there were no local ratings for Super Bowl XLIII, in 2009, because the switch to HD took place in February and Nielsen delayed the ratings period until March.

However, that was the second most watched Super Bowl in history with an average of 98.7 million people tuned in, so it would not be impossible to imagine it would beat the previous years ratings.

It appears that the Ragister is using numbers from Scarborough Research of November 2009 and the figures are weekly print and online.

That averages out to 83,982 readers per day and is far less than an audience of 465,000.

Stay Tuned!