Entertainment

Tebow-Brady tiff sets soft ratings record

Tim Tebow’s flop Saturday night set a few NFL playoff rating records — but was nowhere near the blockbuster, 50 million viewers that some sports TV experts predicted.

Preliminary ratings for the Denver-New England game — which was never close and ended in a 45-10 walkover by the Patriots — show the audience was a little more than 30 million viewers.

That was enough to make it the highest-rated AFC Divisional playoff in 18 years, according to the Web site tvbythenumbers.com.

But the lack of any real tension in the game apparently kept the viewership from soaring to the heights that had been expected from the showdown between the game’s top rookie quarterback and its winningest veteran, Tom Brady.

The week before, the Tebow-led overtime win against Pittsburg set an NFL wild-card game record with more than 40 million viewers.

The game’s foregone conclusion, it would appear, freed viewers to channel surf a bit — giving the Miss America Pageant, on at the same time, boost of nearly 20 percent over last year.