What a comparison of the latest Thursday Night Football numbers on all platforms reveals depends on what you are comparing them to.
The rules of television say that an NFL game simultaneously broadcasted on Amazon Prime, CBS and the NFL Network should perform relatively well. So far in the 2017 NFL season, Thursday Night Football has complied with that rule, depending on what is considered relative.
According to a press release from CBS, the game on Thursday, Oct. 19 between the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders got an 8.6 rating and 14.4 million viewers between its broadcast (CBS) and cable (NFL Network) audiences. While that easily won the night despite the fact that there was MLB postseason along with college football, NBA and NHL regular season games according to Douglas Pucci of Programming Insider, the strength of the simulcast depends on the comparison.
Sports Media Watch reports that in comparison to the fourth CBS/NFL Network simulcast last season, the ratings and viewership actually represented a very slight decrease. That game in 2016, between the other two AFC West Teams, drew an 8.7 rating and 14.5 million viewers. In comparison to the fourth simulcast in 2015, the drops are nine percent in ratings and five percent in viewership.
CBS’ press release compares the numbers to the Week 7 TNF game last season, conveniently. In comparison to the game between the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers in 2016, the numbers demonstrate a five percent increase in ratings and a viewership increase of a million viewers. The Amazon Prime audience for Chiefs-Raiders, which has been lauded by Amazon as outperforming Twitter’s audience in 2016 handily, was 492,000.
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The bottom line is that the TNF ratings for this season seem to be outperforming games at the same points of the 2016 season, but holding steady in comparison to their actual comparable games.