Amazon's 'TNF' First Live-Streaming Program Included In Nielsen Ratings


As part of a three-year-deal to measure viewership for Amazon’s new NFL Thursday Night Football,” Nielsen will include live-streaming viewing of games in its national TV rating service -- the first time a streaming platform's live exclusive programming will be included in its national TV ratings.

Amazon won the right to air 15 exclusive “Thursday Night Football” games in March 2021 under a multi-year $1 billion deal. Previously, the “TNF” series, for the bulk of the series games, was simulcast by Fox Television Network and the NFL Network.

Analysts estimate Amazon will look to target $200 million to $300 million in total regular-season national TV ad revenues.

Last season, Fox/NFL Network’s "Thursday Night Football" grew 9% to 14.9 million for 11 games. NFL Network was up 36% to 8.1 million for seven games that it aired exclusively on Thursday night and on other days.

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In addition, Nielsen says that beginning with the 2022 NFL season, measurement will include full coverage of the TNF broadcast -- pregame, in-game and postgame programming -- on Amazon Prime Video and Amazon’s gaming platform, Twitch, as well as the over-the-air stations in teams’ local markets each week, and out-of-home viewing.

"Thursday Night Football" will be measured and processed like all other NFL games, using Nielsen’s national TV panel, which allows for the same metrics to be reported across all other national networks.

Nielsen says that measuring the full streaming coverage of the games is a big deal, as NFL pre-game and post-game programs were among the top 27 live telecasts in 2021, and comprised 47 of the top 50.

Nielsen will begin measuring TNF on Amazon starting with its pre-season game August 25 featuring the San Francisco 49ers and Houston Texans.

7 comments about "Amazon's 'TNF' First Live-Streaming Program Included In Nielsen Ratings".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, August 16, 2022 at 12:34 p.m.

    I assume that this means that Amazon is subscribing to Nielsen's service which was going to rate the Thursday Night games anyway---only now Amazon has access to the ratings and will probably use them as audience guarantee "currency'---like every other national TV time seller--- in deals with the time buyers.

  2. Jack Wakshlag from Media Strategy, Research & Analytics replied, August 16, 2022 at 2:04 p.m.

    Smart move by Amazon. Makes it easy to see and buy for advertisers who will be able to incorporate and post just like they normally do.  Will commercial impressions be based on 2 second ad exposure for each individual ad?  Now we see why Nielsen is moving to ad ratings/impressions. Brings in a whole new set of customers for the National rating service.  Will be interesting to see if Amazon requests and produces in universe ratings like the cable nets did years ago.  

  3. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, August 16, 2022 at 3:02 p.m.

    Jack, from the way Wayne's article is worded, it would seem that all they will supply is "average commercial minute" viewer estimates, not "viewers" per commercial. If they opt for commercial by commercial ratings that would not be comparable to the normal way they report audiences for linearTV.

  4. Jack Wakshlag from Media Strategy, Research & Analytics replied, August 16, 2022 at 3:34 p.m.

    That may be true today, but you can get individual minute ratings using Nielsen tools today and we know that Nielsen will offer ad specific ratings in the near future.  Amazon has been among the clients wanting this T it is coming. So for right now, National advertisers will be able to ad Amazon NFL to their schedules easily and Amazon has access to the full array of National rating tools. Nielsen certainly would require Amazon to be a subscriber to the National Service.  When the new National service (Nielsen One) comes out, there will be ratings for each ad. Will it be based on 2 seconds, or some other duration based metric. Haven't heard. 

  5. John Grono from GAP Research, August 16, 2022 at 10:57 p.m.

    Great report Wayne, and discussion with Ed & Jack.

    I think the 2-second threshold would be appropriate given that most digital usage (e.g. video on a smart-phone) is based on 2 (consecutive) seconds 'viewing', so that at least they would be on an equal footing even if the actual 'audience' is inflated.

    The piece of research I would love to see (or do if I had the data) would be to establish what is the average duration of viewing the ad is once the viewer crossed the 2-second threshold.   For example, in a 15-second ad people who watch at least 2 seconds watch on average 12 seconds (making the numbers up for demonstration).   For a 30-second ad it might be 20-seconds.    That is, you get 80% with a 15-second and 67% with a 30-second.

  6. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, August 17, 2022 at 7:32 a.m.

    John, the average duration of eyes-on-screen "viewing" once the two-second threshold has been crossed is about 40-50% of the content---per TVision.

    Also, regarding how an "impression" is defijned, the two-second rule has little meaning for commercials presented by Linear TV and, I assume, addressable TV and most CTV ad sellers as they are all selling complete exposure---that is the commercial runs from start to finish. The threshold business ---which is used mostly in digital media---applies as many ad messages never get presented to completion----so this is where the issue arises. If Nielsen ever gets to the point where it reports on digital video ads---those seen only on digital devices---it should go with a 100% completion rule for comparability with  ads shown on a TV set screen.

  7. Darrin Stephens from McMann & Tate, August 18, 2022 at 1:38 p.m.

    This also presume that Amazon will serve the same ads nationally (same commercial lineup for everyone), and not insert them dynamically. 

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