Amazon put its own spin on its first full-season "Thursday Night Football" audience ratings picture, labeling the franchise's performance among younger demos "historic."
Certainly, what Amazon and the league achieved in regard to making the overall pro football audience younger was notable and shouldn't be overlooked.
Last week, several platforms, including Next TV, reported that the overall audience for the NFL's Thursday night games package fell a "whopping" 41% in its first exclusive year on Amazon Prime Video vs. the 2021 season, when the Fox Broadcast Network shared it with the NFL Network, Amazon and various local stations.
"TNF" averaged 9.6 million viewers on Amazon vs. 16.2 million last season.
Amazon staunchly objects to this narrative for two reasons:
For one, one of the comparable 2021 games -- a late-season matchup that drew 28 million viewers -- was actually broadcasted by Fox on a Saturday. Factoring out that performance, the overall 2021 "TNF" average was 13.3 million viewers.
Secondly, Amazon notes the decidedly rosy picture of younger demos, with adults 18-34 averaging 2.11 million per game, up by 11% year over year. "TNF" averaged 4.7 million viewers among the all-important 18-49 demographic, and the package beat everything in broadcast and cable this season on Thursday night 15 times.
Specifically, Amazon's "TNF" coverage among men age 18-34 was up over 18% vs. 2021 and was the package's largest performance in that demo since 2014.
Youth Movement
Was anything about it "historic"? It was probably more in the realm of "predictable" that the overall audience would drop significantly for a franchise that was removed from what was primarily broadcast television and moved to subscription streaming.
And it was perhaps just as predictable that streaming the games -- and putting a younger football voice in the booth in the form of Kirk Herbstreit -- would result in much better performance in younger demos.
This was probably all a happy tradeoff for the NFL, which has been looking for streaming partners ... and certainly like everyone in media, wants to get younger.
And overall, younger "TNF" got -- this past season's demo performance was younger than any linear platform that shows NFL games. In fact, it skewed younger than any NFL games package has since 2013.
“Amazon has earned a strong reputation for making big bets, and given the unprecedented scale of this challenge and the hallowed place that NFL coverage holds among millions of fans, the launch of Thursday Night Football ranks high among our most ambitious enterprises,” said Jay Marine, Amazon's VP of Prime Video and global head of sports. “We are only at the beginning of a long-term mission, but are ecstatic with the results and achievements of this first season, bringing millions of viewers to Prime Video every week.” ■
