How many people watched the first Thursday Night Football game at Amazon Prime Video?
In a week of firsts, Amazon Prime Video has good reason to be pleased with the Nielsen ratings of the first-ever stream of Thursday Night Football.
The numbers are in and any way you cut it, Amazon Prime Video’s very first regular-season Thursday Night Football game was a big hit. The Kansas City Chiefs 27-24 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers was seen by over 13 million people, according to Nielsen ratings.
This is a season of firsts, as Amazon Prime now becomes the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football through 2033, and have entered into a three-year deal with Nielsen Media Research to measure audience numbers.
It turns out that the average viewership of 15.3 million viewers across all platforms is very much in line with last season when it was broadcast on Fox. By way of comparison, last season’s week two game was carried on the NFL Network and averaged only 8.84 million viewers, making Amazon’s broadcast a viable, and extremely attractive TV alternative.
Using Nielsen’s system, Amazon reports to their advertisers that it is estimating an audience of 12.6 million viewers per week over the season. This makes Thursday Night Football the most-watched program across tv or cable as well, and by a 4-1 margin, with CBS’s “Young Sheldon” coming in second place with 3.5 million viewers.
This now becomes the first time that Nielsen is tracking numbers across a streaming service, and could be a watershed moment for broadcasting and how rights contracts are secured going forward.
Amazon Prime also saw their subscriptions jump to record levels as viewers who have previously not been enticed online are signing up to get their NFL fix.