A pair of .500 AFC teams delivered middling numbers on NBC Thanksgiving night.
The Week 12 Colts/Steelers NFL Thanksgiving special had 20.9 million viewers on NBC Thursday night, per Nielsen fast-nationals — down 25% from Bears/Packers last year (27.8M) and down 9% from Seahawks/49ers in 2014 (22.9M). Ratings were not immediately available.
The Steelers’ win, which peaked at 23.0 million from 9:15-9:30 PM ET, ranks as the least-watched NFL game on the Thanksgiving holiday since 2012, when Patriots/Jets had 19.2 million on NBC.
As one would expect, given viewership levels are higher on Thanksgiving, it was the second-most watched Thursday night game of the season. The Panthers/Broncos Kickoff Game had 25.2 million and the top Thursday Night Football game — Texans/Patriots in Week 3 — had 17.5 million.
Figures do not include streaming viewership on NBC Sports’ digital platforms. With those numbers added to the mix, Thursday’s game had 21.0 million viewers — still the smallest Thanksgiving audience since 2012.
