NBC's 'Sunday Night Football,' With Taylor Swift In Tow, Earns 27M Viewers
- by Wayne Friedman , October 3, 2023
Driven by interest in Super Bowl champs Kansas City Chiefs and another week of Taylor Swift live TV video, watching her football pal Travis Kelce -- NBC posted a top-drawer 27 million TV and streaming viewers for “Sunday Night Football.”
NBC says the game between the Chiefs and New York Jets in the New York area posted a linear TV 25.2 million Nielsen-measured viewers. Another 1.85 million viewers came from streaming/digital platforms -- Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, NFL Digital.
According to the network, it was the largest streaming audience ever for a regular-season Sunday NFL game. Streaming viewing was up 42% from the week before.
In a press release, NBC pointed out that interest in popular musician and performer Taylor Swift attending a NFL football game -- her second in two weeks -- boosted viewing by girls and women on Sunday night.
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Teenage female 12-17 viewers were sharply up 53% versus the season average so far. Women viewers 18-24 were up 24%, and women age 35 and up increased 34%. Collectively, female viewing grew to more than two million.
In anticipation of Swift's appearance, NBC even produced a “Taylor Made for Sunday Night” “Sunday Night Football”game promo which it says was viewed approximately eight million times.
TV ratings were also helped by the game, which was close and competitive--until the end. The Chiefs beat the Jets 23-20.
Wayne, it's typical that all the network gives you is percent increases for female teens and women 18-24, not the actual numbers of "average commercial minute viewers" for those age breaks. But that makes sense as the actual numbers---despite the increases----must be pretty small compared to the usual viewers---men aged 30+.