An AFC West matchup lifted Thursday Night Football to one of its top audiences of the season.
The Week 14 Raiders/Chiefs Thursday Night Football game had a 10.5 final rating and 17.4 million viewers on NBC and NFL Network, up 91% in ratings and 99% in viewership from Vikings/Cardinals last year (5.5, 8.7M) and up 91% in both measures from Cowboys/Bears in 2014 (5.5, 9.1M), both of which aired on NFL Network alone.*
The Chiefs’ win, which peaked with 18.8 million viewers from 9:30-9:45 PM ET, delivered the third-best rating and viewership for TNF this season — trailing Cowboys/Vikings the previous week (12.8, 21.8M) and Texans/Patriots in Week 3 (10.6, 17.5M). The NFL Kickoff and Thanksgiving night games are not part of the TNF package.
Ratings and viewership have now increased for the past three Thursday Night Football telecasts, with a crucial caveat — in two of the three cases, the comparable games last year aired on NFL Network alone.
Figures do not include streaming viewership on NFL and NBC digital platforms or the social network website Twitter, which combined for 417,000 viewers (280K on Twitter alone).
In adults 18-49, Raiders/Chiefs had a 5.6 rating — up 93% from last year (2.9) and the third-best for TNF this season.
* Not including local simulcast viewership.
(Thu. numbers from NBC Sports Group Press Box 12/9, Programming Insider 12/9)
