For at least one night, Thursday night was football night.
The Week 13 Cowboys/Vikings Thursday Night Football game had a 12.8 rating and 21.8 million viewers on NBC and NFL Network, per Nielsen fast-nationals, up 16% in ratings and 22% in viewership from Packers/Lions on CBS and NFL Network last year (11.0, 17.8M). The Week 13 Thursday night game in 2014 aired on Thanksgiving night and was not part of the TNF package.
The 11-1 Cowboys’ latest win, which peaked at 23.5 million viewers from 10:45-11 PM ET, delivered the largest audience in the history of Thursday Night Football (dates back to 2006). The previous high was 21.1 million for Broncos/Chiefs in Week 2 of last season.
Keep in mind there have been numerous Thursday night NFL games to earn a larger audience, just not as part of the Thursday Night Football package. The NFL Kickoff Game has attracted a larger audience every year since 2009 and the Thanksgiving night game had more viewers both last year and in 2014.
Thursday’s game also ranks as the second-highest rated in Thursday Night Football history, a hair behind Broncos/Chiefs last year (12.9).
For the season, Cowboys/Vikings ranks as the highest rated primetime game on any network since Week 1 — topping the previous mark of 12.7 for Patriots/Seahawks in Week 10 and Packers/Vikings in Week 2. It trails both of those as the most-watched since Week 1.
Dating back to the start of Week 10 on November 10th, 11 of 21 NFL telecast windows have posted increases in ratings and viewership. That matches the total of the previous nine weeks, a span that included 58 telecasts through November 7.
Thursday’s figures do not include the streaming audience of 479,000 who watched on NBC and NFL digital platforms or Twitter, the NFL’s largest online audience of the season. Twitter alone generated 310,000 viewers. With those numbers included, TNF scored 22.2 million.
(Thu. numbers from NBC Sports Group Press Box 12/2)
