Super Bowl XLII Is second most-watched show. Only the finale of MASH, which aired 25 years ago, had more TV viewers than Super Bowl XLII. Fox, a division of News Corp., that did the broadcast of Super bowl charged $2.7 million for 30 seconds of advertising time on the game.

An eye-popping 81 percent of all TV sets on in the Boston area Sunday were tuned in to the game. In New York, the audience share was 67 percent. The audience peaked between 9:30 and 10 p.m. ET — the fourth quarter — with 105.7 million people watching, Nielsen said. That’s the most watched super bowl show so far.

There were past Super Bowl games with higher ratings, topped by the 1982 game between San Francisco and Cincinnati (49.1 rating, 73 share). That indicates that a larger percentage of homes with televisions were watching the game. But since the American population has increased, along with the number of people with TVs, the actual number of people watching this year was higher.