On a night with winner-take-all games in Major League Baseball and the WNBA, NFL “Thursday Night Football” went unscathed.
The latest edition of NFL “Thursday Night Football” (Steelers-Browns) averaged 16.59 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, up 19% from Seahawks-Cardinals last year (13.94M) and the most-watched Week 4 edition of “TNF” since Eagles-Packers on FOX and NFL Network in 2019 (17.91M).
(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.)
The Browns’ win, which peaked with 18.50 million in the 9:30 PM ET quarter-hour, dipped only slightly from Falcons-Packers the previous week (16.83M) despite stronger competition that included winner-take-all games in Major League Baseball and WNBA — Phillies-Braves Game 3 on NBC (6.1M) and Fever-Lynx Game 3 on USA Network (2.25M).
Last year’s Seahawks-Cardinals game, it should be noted, faced zero postseason competition as it took place one week earlier on the calendar.
Through three games, “TNF” is now averaging 17.44 million viewers on Prime Video, up 9% from the same point last year (16.06M). After trending flat or down the first two weeks, the series is now seeing gains in each of the key adult demographics — with viewership up 9% in adults 18-34 (from 3.28 to 3.56M), up 5% in 18-49 (from 7.60 to 7.99M) and 7% in 25-54 (from 8.16 to 8.71M). Viewership is also up a stronger 12% among adults 55+ (from 5.85 to 6.54M).
With the disproportionate growth in 55+, Prime Video is averaging a higher median age (48.4) than at the same point last season (47.5). That is still lower than the linear NFL broadcasters, whose median age this season is slightly younger (54.8) than a year ago (55.0). (Note that for the first time, NBC’s younger-skewing Peacock streaming audience is being reported in Nielsen figures.)
