“Thursday Night Football” viewership continues to grow.
The latest edition of NFL “Thursday Night Football” (Seahawks-Broncos) averaged 16.26 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, including local over-the-air simulcasts in the home markets — officially marking most-watched Week 6 edition of the series on record. Viewership increased 1% from the previous high, set by Eagles-Giants last season (16.09M).
It was the second-straight edition of “TNF” to rank as the most-watched on record in its respective week, after Buccaneers-Cowboys delivered its top Week 5 audience. The series has also delivered its largest Week 4 audience since 2019, Week 3 audience since 2016, and Week 2 audience since 2015.
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 almost certain that Giants-Patriots in 2019, which averaged 16.00 million on FOX and NFL Network, would rank higher under current methodology.
The Broncos’ win, which peaked with 18.34 million in the 9 PM ET quarter-hour, actually ranks as the least-watched “TNF” game this season. The game faced competition from the deciding Game 4 of the Brewers-Dodgers MLB National League Championship Series on FS1 and Fox Deportes (6.36M). Last year’s game faced a far less formidable matchup of the Blue Jays and Mariners, which drew just shy of three million.
“TNF” is now averaging 17.29 million viewers for the season, up 9% from the same point last year and the series’ highest five-game average since 2015 on CBS and NFL Network (17.64M).
All five editions of “TNF” this season have posted an increase over last year, making it the only NFL package thus far this season to have gone without a decline.
