NEW YORK -- With an average of 89.5 million people tuning in, CBS scored its own Super Bowl victory Sunday as viewership soared to its highest mark since 1998 on the legs of the New England Patriots' thrilling 32-29 victory over the Carolina Panthers.

The household rating of 41.3 and 63 share topped last year's Tampa Bay Bucs-Oakland Raiders contest on ABC by 1% and was the second-highest-rated game since 1998. CBS estimated that 143 million people watched at least some portion of the 6:30-10:30 p.m. ET telecast. Viewership also inched up 1% from 88.6 million.

The ratings reflected a game that started slowly but reached its zenith in the fourth quarter as the teams matched each other touchdown for touchdown until the Pats won on a field goal with four seconds remaining. Given the lack of marquee names in this year's matchup, Super Bowl XXXVIII started off with one of its lowest ratings at kickoff in recent history, a 37/62, but slowly escalated to a 46.7/67 peak in the 10 p.m. half-hour.

"It's amazing, in the fragmented, splintered world we live in viewership-wise, (that) this game still holds up," said Andrew Donchin, director of national broadcast at media-buying firm Carat USA. "And don't think anything can affect it."

The Super Bowl is a rare television event in that networks do not offer ratings guarantees. That did not matter this year as ad buyers cheered -- with one sour note.

"The people who advertised at halftime aren't that happy," said Harry Keeshan, executive vp national broadcast at media buyer PHD USA. "The rest of the ones in the game should be happy."

Buyers doubted that CBS would need to offer recourse to angry clients, upset that their ads ran around the controversial Janet Jackson show in which Justin Timberlake pulled off part of her top, though one buyer said the effects will spill over into next year's halftime show. "Nearly every advertiser will seek assurances next year that the halftime show is more advertiser-friendly," said John Rash, executive vp national broadcast at Minneapolis-based agency Campbell-Mithun.

In the demos, the game drew a 35.7 among adults 18-49, a 2% decline from a year ago, and a 37.9 with adults 25-54, a 1% dip.

Observers said Sunday's contest validated the conventional wisdom that the teams involved are less important than the game's competitiveness. "The ratings improved over the course of the game," consultant and former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson said. "They started lower than last year and finished higher, which speaks to the fact that the game quality is the biggest component in ratings than the matchup, which didn't attract the kind of passion that some previous games have."

CBS' half-hour postgame show retained a healthy 35.0/50 in the overnights, the highest score for the Super Bowl postmortem since 1996. As for the postgame entertainment program, "Survivor: All-Stars" didn't get started until nearly 11 p.m. in East Coast markets but still delivered 20.2/33 in the overnight markets. CBS said that was the highest overnight rating for post-Super Bowl program since the eye network launched "Survivor: Australia" on the coattails of the 2001 Super Bowl.