Despite a lopsided score and electoral competition, Thursday Night Football scored its largest audience in nearly a month.
The latest edition of Thursday Night Football (Packers-49ers) averaged 13.17 million viewers on FOX and NFL Network, marking the most-watched edition of TNF since Week 5 (Buccaneers-Bears: 14.71M).
The multi-week high occurred despite a lopsided score (Green Bay led at one point 31-3) and competition from presidential election returns on the cable news networks. With no winner projected as of Thursday night, CNN (6.61M), Fox News (5.72M) and MSNBC (5.07M) combined to average a whopping 17.4 million viewers in primetime.
Much like Sunday Night Football, which at one point faced the NBA Finals, Game 7 of the NLCS and the World Series in four consecutive weeks, Thursday Night Football has aired under adverse circumstances all season. In addition to election coverage on Thursday, TNF aired opposite a presidential debate in Week 7 (Giants-Eagles: 10.07M) and on a Monday afternoon in Week 6 (Chiefs-Bills: 12.16M). [Related: NFL TV ratings page.]
Despite the tough competition, Green Bay’s easy win declined only 6% from Week 9 last year (49ers-Cardinals: 14.00M) and increased 19% from 2018 (Raiders-49ers: 11.06M). TNF has now declined in four straight weeks, largely due to the circumstances outlined above.
Even on a night dominated by politics, the NFL still averaged more viewers than any non-NFL sporting event since January. Game 6 of the World Series, the most-watched non-NFL sportscast since the College Football Playoff, averaged 12.60 million.
Technically, TNF was the most-watched program of the day, as no individual cable news telecast exceeded 7.61 million viewers (CNN’s 7-8 PM ET block).
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 11.6, cable news numbers from TV Newser 11.6]
