Thursday Night Football has settled into a viewership range in which ten million is the high end.
Bills-Patriots averaged a 4.9 rating and 9.97 million viewers on the latest edition of NFL Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime, the third-largest TNF audience since Week 4 — behind Titans-Packers the previous week (10.32M) and Ravens-Buccaneers in Week 8 (10.01M).
The Bills’ win, which peaked with 11.4 million viewers, ranks sixth out of the ten total TNF games overall. Other than the first three games, which each topped the 11 million mark, ten million has been the high water mark.
As usual, TNF overperformed in the key young adult demographics. While overall ratings declined a whopping 48% from last year on FOX and NFL Network (Cowboys-Saints: 9.3), ratings declined just 13% in adults 18-34 (2.9), 25% in 18-49 (3.6) and 29% in 25-54 (4.2).
For the season, TNF is averaging 2.2 million viewers in 18-34 — up 16% from last year’s average, which includes simulcasts on FOX and NFL Network (1.9M). The 18-34 demo constitutes 23% of the audience, compared to 15% last year. Fully half of the audience is in the 18-49 demo, compared to 38% last year.
TNF is now averaging 9.7 million viewers for the season (11.5 million per Amazon’s internal metrics). Eight of the ten TNF games have averaged fewer viewers than last year’s least-watched FOX simulcast (Jets-Colts: ~11.7M).
(Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 12.5)
