Pitting the Patriots against a prominent rookie quarterback, Thursday Night Football scored its largest Week 6 audience.
Giants-Patriots averaged a 9.5 rating and 16.0 million viewers on FOX and NFL Network Thursday night, marking the most-watched Week 6 Thursday Night Football game yet (dates back to 2012) and the highest rated since 2014 (Colts-Texans: 10.0).
The Patriots’ win increased 7% in ratings and 8% in viewership from last year (Eagles-Giants: 8.9, 14.8M) and 7% and 10% respectively from 2017 (Eagles-Panthers: 8.9, 14.6M).
All three Thursday Night Football games on FOX have increased over last year, with two of the three at multi-year highs.
Including the streaming audience on Amazon Prime, Twitch, Yahoo! Sports and the Fox and NFL digital platforms, the game averaged 16.8 million viewers (+9%).
On FOX and NFL Network alone, TNF had a 4.8 rating in adults 18-49 (+2%) and a 3.5 in adults 18-34 (-10%).
As one would expect, TNF crushed the competing Rays-Astros MLB Division Series Game 5 on FS1 (2.2, 3.67M). It also dominated the night’s most-watched entertainment show (“Young Sheldon”: 7.63M), and the top show in adults 18-34 and 18-49 (“Grey’s Anatomy”: 0.9 and 1.4).
The Thursday Night Football simulcasts are now averaging 16.8 million viewers for the season, up 14% from the same point last year (14.8M).
The last regular season meeting between the Patriots and Giants — in Week 10 of the 2015 season — was the featured game of the late doubleheader window on CBS. That telecast averaged a 16.3 rating and 28.32 million viewers in what was a different era for the NFL on television.
[Nielsen estimates from NFL Communications 10.11, Programming Insider 10.11]
