NFL regular season viewership down 3% from last season

NFL regular season viewership dropped 3% from last season, not unexpected as ‘Thursday Night Football’ moved from Fox and NFL Network to airing exclusively on Amazon Prime Video .

The 272 regular season games averaged 16.7 million viewers across television and digital platforms. The league also says he had 185 million fans watch the game at some point in 18 weeks.

Despite the dip, it is the third highest average since 2016. Last season he averaged 17.1 million.

NBC, Fox and CBS saw viewership increase over last season. ESPN viewership numbers declined, but tended to flatten out or increase slightly once the January 2 game between Buffalo His Bills and Cincinnati His Bengals took place. The game was suspended midway through the first quarter when Bills safety Dahmer Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest.

prime video debut

Prime Video’s 15-game “Thursday Night Football” package averaged 9.58 million viewers, according to Nielsen’s figures. Amazon’s first-party audience measurement averaged 11.3 million views.

Amazon told advertisers it estimates an average of 12.6 million viewers based on Nielsen figures.Amazon has struck a three-year deal with Nielsen to track ratings. This was the first time Nielsen tracked and included ratings from his streaming service.

Additional numbers from Amazon’s tracking come from the company’s ability to measure viewing across users who may be watching different feeds on connected TVs, apps, and Twitch.

By comparison, Fox, NFL Network and Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” tricast averaged 16.4 million.

But the numbers showed growth in other areas. Demos averaged 2.11 million viewers for 18-34 year olds, an 11% increase from last season. The average age of viewers is 47, seven years younger than other games.

“Thursday Night Football” was the most-watched program 13 out of 15 times, despite the game being only available for streaming. It was in Game 5 of the World Series that they were defeated.

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sunday increase

The biggest jump was at CBS’s National Games window. His 10-game average as of 4:25 p.m. ET was 23.5 million, an increase of 8%. CBS’ overall average was 18.49 million, up 2%.

Fox posted a 4% increase in both overall numbers (19.42 million) and a 10-game national package in the late window (24.13 million). Fox has his six postseason games this season, including the Super Bowl.

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” was up 3%, averaging 19.9 million. His nine of his Sunday night games averaged over 20 million, which was his best performance in three years.

Mixed news on ESPN

ESPN’s package of 15 “Monday Night Football” games and two Saturday games in Week 18 averaged 13.79 million, down 3%.

ESPN and ABC aired the two Monday night games simultaneously on September 19th. Considering these games, the average dropped to 13.41 million in 19 games.

The Buffalo-Cincinnati game averaged 21.1 million before Hamlin collapsed. The average increased to 23.9 million in his last hour. ESPN did not include the numbers in the final average because the game was cancelled.

For Russell Wilson, the first game against the Broncos, the season opener against his former team in Denver and Seattle, drew 19.8 million MNF viewers, the highest since the package was broadcast on ESPN in 2006. saw the audience.

Other numbers

The most watched game was on Thanksgiving. The New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys game broadcast on Fox averaged 42.1 million, and the first game between the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions broadcast on CBS averaged 31.9 million.

NBC’s highest viewership was also on Thanksgiving, when the primetime game between the New England Patriots and the Minnesota Vikings saw 25.6 million viewers, the ninth-highest in a regular season.

Of the 10 most-watched games, Fox had 5, CBS had 4, and NBC had 1.

The regular season game ranked among the top 25 most watched and 47th of the top 50.

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