The Nielsen dial got a good workout Thursday night as sports fans enjoyed one of the wildest fall nights in recent memory.
In the top of the 9th inning, with the Brewers trailing 2-0, with one out and a runner on the corner, New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso hit a 3-on-1 changeup into the right field seats, making it a hit in the baseball world. It has been named as an eternal highlight. American Family Field seats. The home run that saved the slugger’s faltering season sent the Mets to the NLDS, where they would face their Philadelphia rivals in a best-of-five series.
The Mets’ win averaged 4.02 million viewers on ESPN, according to Nielsen, giving it bragging rights as the cable network’s biggest MLB audience in three years. Overall, the nine-game Wild Card Round was the most watched on record, drawing 25% more viewers than a similar telecast last season.
Two hours after Alonso sent Amazs fans into a frenzy, the Atlanta Falcons put on a bit of an arrhythmogenic show of their own against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Kirk Cousins and his incredible performance (42-of-58 passes, 509 yards, 4 touchdowns, 1 interception) had a brutal performance on the closing drive, setting up a 52-yard Yonghoe Ku field goal. , sending the game into overtime. . Cousins won the toss and then connected with Kadarel Hodge on a short pass that the receiver connected for a 45-yard score.
Final score: Falcons 36, Bucks 30. Amazon Prime’s Thursday night coverage averaged 12.3 million viewers, and while the streamer’s distribution was surprisingly modest considering the exciting nature of the game, Thursday night’s production still surpassed the Bears from a year ago. I was able to surpass it. Approximately 584,000 viewers raved about Commander in Chief.
The game drew 13.88 million viewers during the 15-minute period from 9:30 to 9:45 p.m. ET.
The NFC South game is currently Amazon’s least-watched TNF game so far this season (unsurprisingly, last week’s game between the Cowboys and Giants tied for 16.22 million viewers and beat all of their opponents). ), the NFL package is being built at a pace that builds on the previous one. Slate of the year. Through the first four weeks of Thursday night games, Amazon averaged 14.17 million viewers per game, up 5% from 13.54 million a year ago.
TNF continues to attract a disproportionate number of young people each week. So far this season, the packages have been shipped to an average of 3.06 million adults ages 18-34 per game, representing 22% of Amazon’s total Thursday night deliveries. Among adults under 50, TNF averaged 6.87 million viewers, with Dollar Demo currently accounting for nearly half (48%) of total viewers. For comparison, NBC’s more popular Sunday Night Football Show averaged 7.52 million viewers among adults 18-49, giving it a 36% share of the primetime terrestrial TV broadcast (21.02 million). equivalent.
Proportionally, Amazon draws more fans in the 18-49 demo than the Sunday afternoon national slot shared by CBS and FOX. The two stations average a weekly audience of 25.81 million viewers in the must-see 4:20 p.m. ET time slot, of which 34%, or 8.88 million, are members of the key advertising demo.
TNF’s skewed younger audience is a key selling point for Amazon as advertisers continue to go after a demographic that has largely abandoned traditional TV. The median age of TNF viewers is 47.5 years, which is 7.2 years younger than the current average across the NFL’s traditional television partners (54.7 years) and 16.6 years younger than the broadcast primetime average (64.1 years).
Amazon returns next week for an NFC West game between the 49ers and Seahawks. Both teams have had uncharacteristically modest records this season, with San Francisco appearing in only one game in the national slot so far (Monday Night Football opener against the Jets on September 9th, with average viewership on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2). (20.43 million viewers), while Seattle had its first high-profile moment on ABC earlier this week. The 42-29 loss in Detroit had an average audience of 15.03 million viewers, compared to 5.61 million on ESPN, which reported on the Titans-Dolphins loss.
