Slight decline for TNF opener, but still third-best game on Prime

Viewership slipped for the season debut of Thursday Night Football , though indications are that the game would have surpassed last year had it been competitive.

In the season premiere of NFL Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video, the Bills’ rout of the Dolphins averaged 14.96 million viewers — down 1% from Vikings-Eagles last year (15.06M) but still the third-largest NFL audience ever on Prime, trailing only Vikings-Eagles and Seahawks-Cowboys later the same season (15.26M).

Viewership peaked at 18.09 million during the 9:15 PM ET quarter-hour, which per Amazon is the highest peak audience for TNF since it moved to the streamer in 2022. Last year’s Vikings-Eagles peak was 17 million.

As has been the case for TNF in the Prime era, the audience makeup was considerably younger than that of the other NFL broadcasters. Thursday’s median age was 46.6, nearly eight years younger than that of the traditional NFL broadcasters in Week 1 (54.2). (It should be noted that does not include the other streaming-exclusive NFL game this season — Packers-Eagles on Peacock last Friday — which had a younger median age.)

Thursday Night Football of course dominated the rest of television, which included a regional Major League Baseball window on FOX (1.93M) and college football on ESPN (Arizona State-Texas State: 993K) .

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