Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars scored their biggest win in years in front of the largest audience of Week 5.
The latest edition of “Monday Night Football” (Chiefs-Jaguars) averaged 22.3 million viewers across ABC and ESPN, marking the first time this season that “MNF” was the most-watched game of the week.
The Jaguars’ thrilling win, which peaked at 25.4 million in the 11 PM ET quarter-hour, increased 40 percent from a cable-exclusive Saints-Chiefs game last year (15.91M). Since ESPN began airing “MNF” in 2006, only five regular season windows have averaged a larger audience, including one earlier this season (Lions-Ravens: 22.8M).
Keep in mind that Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2006 and did not do so in 100% of markets until February. In addition, Nielsen in September shifted to a new methodology that adds data from smart TVs and set-top boxes to its preexisting panel.
Shifting to the Sunday windows, NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” (Patriots-Bills) averaged 21.9 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics — up 4% and 7% respectively from a weather-delayed Cowboys-Steelers game last season (9.4, 20.3M). On a Nielsen-only basis, game averaged a 9.8 rating and 19.48 million.
“SNF” was the most-watched NFL window of the day if one includes Adobe Analytics. On a Nielsen-only basis, it ranked third behind both FOX and CBS.
FOX averaged a 9.6 and 20.33 million for its late doubleheader window (mostly Commanders-Chargers), down 3% in ratings but up a fraction of a percent from last year’s equivalent window on CBS (9.9, 20.27M). Given the changes in Nielsen methodology over the past year — the February expansion of out-of-home viewing and September rollout of “Big Data + Panel” — viewership was almost certainly down, all things being equal.
FOX says its national window is averaging 26.3 million viewers this season, up 3% from last year (25.6M), but that too is a small enough increase to be accounted for by Nielsen’s changes.
CBS averaged a 9.1 rating and 19.6 million for its singleheader, marking the network’s most-watched singleheader window since 2013. As goes without saying, that stretch includes years when there was no out-of-home viewing included in Nielsen estimates. CBS dominated the early game slate, comfortably outpacing the FOX regional window at a 5.2 and 10.55 million.
Rounding out the Sunday slate, NFL Network averaged a 2.9 and 6.4 million for the Vikings-Browns game from London, per Nielsen (6.04M) and Adobe Analytics. That is the third-largest audience for an International Series game on NFL Network and an increase of 12% and 21% respectively from Jets-Vikings in the same window last year.
Going back to last week, Amazon’s “Thursday Night Football” (49ers-Rams) averaged a 6.6 and 14.79 million in Week 5 — officially up 20% in viewership from Buccaneers-Falcons last year (12.30M).
It is official Nielsen policy to compare the current “Big Data + Panel” figures to last year’s panel-only data, but because Prime Video released “Big Data + Panel” viewership last year, it is possible to make an apples-to-apples comparison. Versus the “Big Data” figure for Buccaneers-Falcons last year, 49ers-Rams increased 12% from 13.21 million.
