When word got out that NBC plans to charge $3 million for each 30-second ad slot it sells for next year's Super Bowl, Fox executives, who sold most of their slots this year for about $2.7 million each, were no doubt gnashing their teeth.

Indeed, much of the media coverage surrounding the announcement, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, questioned whether NBC's price hike—at 10 percent, roughly double the typical annual increase—was realistic. For context, when CBS aired the Super Bowl in 2006, it charged about $2.6 million per 30-second slot.

As the U.S. enters a recession and advertisers are increasingly hesitant to spend large sums on traditional print and television outlets, NBC, which has been beleaguered by viewers fleeing to cable, delayed-viewing, and online forums, seemed overly optimistic with the price hike.

And with the decline of traditional advertising, the idea that major television events can still guarantee blockbuster audiences to advertisers and huge paydays to networks has itself come under threat.

The Academy Awards show, which commands the second-highest ad prices in TV (and is affectionately known among advertisers as the "Super Bowl for women"), was buffeted by the writers' strike this year and brought in a paltry 32 million viewers, the fewest in its history.

ABC, which broadcast the show this year, sold almost all the ads in advance, charging $1.8 million for 30-second spots. But the poor performance is expected to hurt ad sales for next year's Academy Awards.

Other awards shows—the Grammys, Emmys, and Golden Globes—suffered their worst ratings in years this year. For the Emmys, the numbers were the poorest since 1990.

Still, there is reason to believe that the Super Bowl can buck these ominous trends. For one thing, the game is "TiVo-proof," as one industry expert put it, because sports fans prefer to watch the action live.

Fans of awards shows, by contrast, can check online to see who won, to read what actors said, and to critique what celebrities wore. Fans can even check TiVo for next-day replays of the acceptance speeches that interest them the most.

And, of course, there's no incentive to skip the Super Bowl commercials, which have become as much a reason to tune in as is the game itself, if you want to be up to date for watercooler chat the next day.

As a result, this year's Super Bowl, broadcast live from Glendale, Arizona, was the most-watched ever, with 97.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. (Fox claimed a total of 130 million people tuned in by the end of the game.)

In fact, the game was the second-most-watched show in the entire history of television, ranking second only after the final episode of the situation comedy M*A*S*H, which garnered 106 million viewers in 1983.

With momentum like that, NBC, which hasn't hosted the Super Bowl in years, probably feels justified in hiking ad prices, says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and director of research at Horizon Media, a media-services company.

The Super Bowl is the "highest-rated show across every demographic, including kids and teens," a very desirable demographic for advertisers, said Adgate. "It's a juggernaut, and it wouldn't surprise me if they get that pricing, whether or not it's a recession. Where else can advertisers get 90-plus million viewers all at the same time?"

In addition, says Adgate, the National Football League is a canny marketing machine when it comes to the Super Bowl. The game airs in the month of February, when it's cold and dark outside, and generally starts at 6 p.m., so it ends at a reasonable hour for East Coast viewers, unlike the Oscars.

"The N.F.L. took a championship football game and created an event around it," says Adgate.

And, despite the $3 million price tag, savvy advertisers will probably stick around.