Thursday Night Football bookended the Christmas holiday with a pair of increases on NFL Network.
The Week 16 Washington/Eagles NFL regular season game drew 8.1 million viewers on NFL Network Saturday night, up 14% from the same matchup in an earlier timeslot last year (7.2M). Ratings were not immediately available.
Washington’s NFC East-clinching win ranks third out of NFL Network’s eight exclusive telecasts this season, behind Browns/Bengals in Week 9 (8.8M) and Vikings/Cardinals in Week 14 (8.7M). It topped the previous week’s Saturday night game, Jets/Cowboys, by 10% (8.1M to 7.4M).
In other action last week, Chargers/Raiders scored 7.1 million on Christmas Eve — up 46% from Titans/Jaguars last year (4.9M). The Raiders’ overtime win scored the third-smallest audience of the season* on any network, ahead of only Titans/Jaguars in Week 11 (6.6M) and Rams/Buccaneers in Week 15 (6.0M).
Among adults 18-49, TNF scored a 2.4 rating on Thursday and a 2.5 on Saturday.
Overall, the complete Thursday Night Football schedule averaged a 7.9 rating and 13.0 million viewers on NFL Network and CBS/local affiliates — up 4% in ratings and 6% in viewership from last year (7.6, 12.3M) and the highest averages in the history of TNF (dates back to 2006). Keep in mind this season was just the second in which TNF games aired on a broadcast network.
* not including Yahoo!’s live stream of Bills/Jaguars in Week 7 (1.6M).
(Week 16 numbers via ShowBuzz Daily [1], [2]; season avg. from NFL Communications)
