“Thursday Night Football” hit yet another viewership high in Week 7 of the season, as Patriots-Bears delivered one of the series’ top audiences since moving to Prime Video.
The latest edition of NFL “Thursday Night Football” (Patriots-Bears) averaged 19.86 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, including local over-the-air simulcasts in the home markets — trailing only Broncos-Chiefs on Christmas night last year (21.06M) as the most-watched edition of “TNF” since Prime Video began airing the series in 2022.
Excluding the Christmas game, it was the most-watched edition of “TNF” since Packers-Cardinals on FOX and NFL Network in 2021 (20.26M).
This year’s six “TNF” games on Prime Video rank among the 11 most-watched on the streamer. (That does not include the annual Black Friday or Wild Card playoff games on Prime, which are part of separate rights deals.)
The Bears’ win, which peaked with 21.72 million in the 9 PM ET quarter-hour, officially ranks as the most-watched Week 7 edition of “TNF” — surpassing the previous high of 17.12 million for Seahawks-49ers on CBS and NFL Network in 2015. It was the third-straight edition of “TNF” to rank as the most-watched on record in its respective week, after Seahawks-Broncos and Buccaneers-Cowboys did so in the two prior weeks.
All six “TNF” games on Prime Video have hit multi-year highs this season, including a six-year high in Week 4, a ten-year high in Week 3 and 11-year high in Week 2.
Note that out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen estimates until 2020 or fully accounted for until 2025, that this is only in the second year of a new Nielsen methodology integrating “Big Data” from smart TVs, set-top boxes and first party data with its traditional panel, and that Nielsen has recently tweaked its measurement to better account for co-viewing of games. It is possible that the 2015 Seahawks-49ers game would rank higher under present-day methodology.
“TNF” is now averaging 17.71 million viewers for the season, up 12% from the same point last season (15.84M) and the series’ highest average through Week 7 on record. The previous high was 17.57 million on CBS and NFL Network in 2015, a figure that would again be higher under current methodology.
