Amazon Averages 15.3M Viewers For ‘Thursday Night Football’

The NFL already dominates TV. Now it looks like it will dominate streaming, too.

Based on its own first-party measurements and Nielsen, Amazon Prime Video says its first stream of “Thursday Night Football” averaged 15.3 million viewers.

Nielsen says the online giant’s stream of the Kansas City Chiefs 27-24 win over the Los Angeles Chargers averaged 13 million viewers. That number includes local TV audiences in each team’s respective market.

Either way, the NFL and Amazon popped a huge number to kick off their exclusive 11-year deal worth $1 billion a year.

If you go by Amazon measurements, the number beats the 15.1 million average viewership for ‘TNF’ last year, which was tri-cast on Fox Sports, NFL Network, Amazon, and other digital platforms.

Either number beats the 12.5 million viewership guarantee that Amazon gave advertisers — so they will be satisfied, too.

Amazon’s live stream generated more viewers than any other show on broadcast or cable TV Thursday night. More info on TNF:

• Amazon says TNF drew a 4.25 rating among adults aged 18-34. That made TNF the #1 rated program for the week in that advertiser-coveted demo. It was 18% higher than the average NFL game this season.
• The online giant successfully targeted hard-to-reach young viewers. The median viewer age was 46 vs. 54 for last year’s tri-cast on Fox, NFLN and Amazon.
• TNF on Prime Video ranked as most-watched program of night on broadcast or cable. With 13 million viewers, TNF’s audience dwarfed the No. 2 show, “Young Sheldon” on CBS, by 271%.
• The local telecasts in Los Angeles and Kansas City averaged 602,00 and 550,000 viewers respectively.

Amazon’s football team returns to action tonight, streaming the Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns. The pregame show “TNF Tonight” starts at 7 pm ET, followed the kickoff of TNF at 8:15 pm ET.

Previously, Amazon said in an internal memo that its first ‘TNF’ stream drove a record number of Prime subscriptions.

Over a three-hour period, the game brought in more Prime sign-ups than any other day in company history, including Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and Prime Day, said Amazon’s Jay Marine.

Last year, the NFL accounted for 48 of the Top 50 most-watched shows on linear TV. If TNF is any indication, look for the Shield to stake a big claim in streaming too.

This is a developing story. FOS will update with more data and news throughout the day.