A deeper look at the viewership for Peacock’s first NFL playoff game shows that the audience makeup of a live streamed game is far different from that of traditional linear television.
Last Saturday’s Dolphins-Chiefs AFC Wild Card Game on Peacock finished with a 9.2 rating and 22.86 million viewers, per Nielsen, figures that include local over-the-air simulcasts on NBC affiliates in home markets Kansas City and Miami. Those simulcasts combined to average 1.35 million (855K in K.C. and 490K in Miami), bringing the Peacock-only audience to 21.5 million.
While viewership increased over last year’s Chargers-Jaguars game in the same Saturday night window — rising 11% on a Nielsen-only basis and 6% including last year’s Adobe Analytics audience — the household rating declined 12% from last year’s 10.5. The divergence indicates that there was far greater out-of-home viewing for the Peacock game than last year on NBC.
The bigger change relative to last year is in the key young adult demographics, as the 11% increase in overall viewership pales in comparison to the gains in adults 18-49, 18-34 and 25-54. Dolphins-Chiefs averaged 10.77 million viewers in 25-54, up 31% from last year’s 8.24 million; 10.37 million viewers in 18-49, up 44% from last year’s 7.22 million; and 4.58 million in 18-34, up two-thirds from last year’s 2.76 million.
As a percentage of the Nielsen-measured audience, adults 18-34 accounted for 20% (compared to 13% last year); 18-49 45% (35% last year); and 25-54 47% (40% last year).
Notably, the Peacock game averaged 892,000 viewers in the demographic of kids and teens 12-17 — up more than three-fourths from last year (502K) and behind only Packers-Cowboys on FOX Sunday (1.03M) as the highest of any Wild Card Game the past two years, per a source. While the demographic accounted for just 3.9% of the audience, that is still considerably higher than last year (2.4%).
The flip side of the growth in younger viewers is that the older audience dropped off by double-digits. The Peacock game averaged 10.47 million among adults 50+, down 14% from last year (12.21M). The 50+ demo, which accounted for a solid 60% of the audience last year, made up 46% this year.
Compared to the rest of this year’s Wild Card games, the Peacock audience was comfortably the smallest of the weekend, but the game fared better in the young demographics — ranking third out of six in adults 18-49 and second in adults 18-34. Despite averaging nearly ten million fewer viewers than Steelers-Bills on CBS Monday afternoon, Dolphins-Chiefs finished half a point ahead in 18-49 (7.9 to 7.4) and a full point ahead in 18-34 (6.5 to 5.4).
Overall, the median age for the Peacock game was 47.5 — a year younger than Amazon’s Thursday Night Football (48.5) and far younger than the other Wild Card games. The youngest-skewing of the other games were Packers-Cowboys and Rams-Lions, each at a median age of 55.6. (By virtue of its vastly larger audience of more than 40 million, Packers-Cowboys averaged larger audiences in each of the young adult demographics.) Steelers-Bills had a median age of 56.5 and Browns-Texans of 56.7. For Eagles-Buccaneers on Monday night, the median age was 58.3 on ABC, 47.6 on ESPN and 48.5 for the ESPN2 Manningcast.
In essence, the Peacock audience was a trade-off for the NFL in multiple ways. Not only was the league trading overall reach for a nine-figure rights fee, it traded a broad audience for one that was narrow, but significantly younger.
The relative youth of Saturday’s audience will likely be more than enough for the NFL to disregard just how low — by its standards — the numbers actually were. Of the 140 total Wild Card games played dating back to the 1991-92 season, the 22.86 million for Dolphins-Chiefs ranks in the bottom 30. Moreover, the 9.2 rating is the lowest (by a wide margin) of any NFL playoff game over that span, more than a full point below the previous mark — set by last year’s Chargers-Jaguars game.
