Thursday Night Football has now scored three-straight double-digit gains to open the season.
The latest edition of NFL Thursday Night Football (Lions-Packers) averaged a 6.3 rating and 13.48 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, up 9% in ratings and 15% in viewership from last year (Dolphins-Bengals: 5.7, 11.72M) and the third-largest TNF audience of the Amazon era.
The three TNF games this season rank as the most-watched since Amazon acquired rights, surpassing all of last season’s games — the most-watched of which was the Chargers-Chiefs opener at 13.03 million.
The Lions’ win, which peaked with 15.29 million viewers, also ranks as the most-watched TNF game in Week 3 of the season since 2019 — with the caveat that games in 2020 and 2021 aired exclusively on NFL Network.
TNF is now averaging 14.14 million viewers this season, up 19% from the first three games last year (11.87M) and up 67% from the comparable point two years ago, when the first three games aired exclusively on NFL Network (8.49M).
Continuing the trend from last season, TNF continues to overperform in adults 18-34. Its average viewership in the demo (3.12M) is 25% higher than that of the other NFL broadcasters (2.50M), compared to a 12% advantage in 18-49 (6.95M to 6.21M).
While TNF remains disproportionately strong in 18-34, the year-over-year growth has been higher in 18-49 and 25-54. Ratings for Lions-Packers increased 1% in 18-34 (from 3.9 to 4.0), compared to 6% in 18-49 (from 4.6 to 4.9) and 11% in 25-54 (from 5.2 to 5.7). Giants-49ers the prior week increased 13% in 18-34 (from 3.9 to 4.4), compared to 22% in 18-49 (from 4.3 to 5.2) and 26% in 25-54 (from 4.8 to 6.0).
Keep in mind that Nielsen is not including Amazon’s internal “first party” data in its viewership estimates for TNF, as was originally planned. Those figures are included in a separate “Integrated Live Streaming Report” that has yet to be accredited by the Media Ratings Council. Under that measure, Thursday’s game averaged 14.95 million and TNF is averaging 15.68 million for the season.
