Super Bowl broadcast dim or dark? What causes it and how to fix

Nothing could be worse than turning on your television pumped up to watch something live only to find out something is wrong with your setup. That was the reality for a good bit of the crowd turning on Super Bowl Sunday this year.

Especially if you're under the pressure of hosting a party and keeping your friends and family happy and entertained, nothing could be worse than a failing setup. Hopefully, we have some answers for you here that help.

I, personally, was among those who turned on their broadcast only to find the pregame broadcast looked dull, colorless, and dim. At first, I thought it may have been the lighting inside Allegiant Stadium, but I realized even commercials looked a little off.

A small portion of the viewing audience was having the same issue as me. Here's some info on what causes it and, more importantly, how you can fix it.

Why is Super Bowl broadcast dim, dull, or dark?

If you don't have a 4K TV

The broadcast may be dim, dull, or dark for you because of wonky picture settings.

This could be because your brightness got turned down or because other picture settings like contrast or color are out of whack.

The best way to fix this is by going into your TV's picture settings and resetting those to default. If you don't know how to find that, refer to your TV's manual. If you threw that away years ago like the rest of us, I would recommend using a search engine like Google with something like "How to reset TV MODEL picture settings".

If you do have a 4K TV

If you have a 4K TV, the issue could be because of some settings with HDR. There are a lot of technical things with HDR that might make the picture look dark. I, frankly, am not qualified to explain them, so here's an article from Wired if you're interested in learning why.

This happens with 4K content on TVs from time to time. My TV had less-than-accessible settings for the user in regards to HDR, so what I did was switch to the non-4K broadcast of the game. It's often on another channel directly before or after the 4K channel.

If you want to instead fiddle around with the HDR settings to access the 4K broadcast in all its glory, then you may want to refer to the above linked Wired article or Google something along the lines of "How to adjust TV MODEL HDR picture settings".