Instead of being overshadowed by the election, the NFL scored some of the best numbers this season for its weeknight primetime windows.
The latest edition of NFL Thursday Night Football (Bengals-Ravens) averaged 13.63 million viewers, up 42% from Panthers-Bears last year (9.56M) and double Falcons-Panthers in 2022 (6.80M). The Ravens’ narrow win, which peaked with 15.30 million in the 9:30 PM ET quarter-hour, delivered the third-largest TNF audience this season, behind Cowboys-Giants in Week (16.22M) and Bills-Dolphins in Week 2 (14.96M).
Thursday Night Football is averaging 13.08 million viewers on Amazon Prime so far this season, up 7% from the same point last year (12.20M), up 36% from 2022 (9.65M) and the highest average for the series through ten weeks since 2019. TNF is the only primetime NFL series trending up from last year.
TNF is averaging 2.74 million viewers in adults 18-34 and 6.19 million in 18-49, both up 6% from the same point last year (2.57M and 5.82M).
Earlier in the week, Buccaneers-Chiefs finished with a combined 20.63 million viewers on the latest edition of Monday Night Football across ABC (10.86M), ESPN (8.79M) and ESPN2 (977K) — the largest MNF audience all season, surpassing Jets-49ers in Week 1 (20.43M). The Chiefs’ win delivered the largest Week 9 MNF audience since 2005.
MNF outperformed Sunday Night Football the prior night, as NBC drew 16.18 million for Colts-Vikings — down from Bills-Bengals last year (18.36M) and the least-watched Week 9 edition of SNF in three years.
In other Week 9 action, FOX drew 24.21 million for national window coverage featuring Lions-Packers or Rams-Seahawks — down from coverage featuring Cowboys-Eagles last year (27.14M).
