NEW YORK (February 5, 2013)—The Super Bowl will almost certainly stand as the most-watched television event of 2013 despite a loss of electricity that plunged half the stadium into darkness during the third quarter of the game Sunday.

CBS asked the Nielsen Co. to estimate how many viewers watched the Baltimore Ravens' victory over the San Francisco 49ers while excluding the 34 minutes that the game was stopped because of a partial power outage in the Superdome.

An average of 108.7 million people watched the game, down from the last two years, but still ranking it as the third most-watched show in U.S. television history.

Despite the Ravens' big lead, few people were interested in tuning out during the outage.

Nielsen estimated a 2 percent drop in viewers during that time, to 106.6 million.

The cause of the blackout hasn't yet been pinpointed.