• by Wayne Friedman , September 18, 2023

For its second NFL year, Amazon Prime Video says its first “Thursday Night Football” game of the 2023 season, featuring the Minnesota Vikings vs. the Philadelphia Eagles, was up 8% to 16.6 million in total over-the-air and streaming viewers, according to the company.

Amazon says this is from Nielsen's Live Streaming Report, which includes Amazon's first-party data “aggregated from the millions of connected TV devices streaming TNF."

After some controversy in recent weeks over Prime Video's push to use first-party data into its “TNF” viewership, the streaming platform notes: “Nielsen's integration of first-party viewing signal into its accredited panel measurement is currently undergoing review by the Media Rating Council and is presently not accredited.”

Still, the company said the game posted “an all-time record as the most-streamed NFL game” -- based on viewing across “all media platforms” -- including Prime Video, Twitch and NFL+.

Looking just at Nielsen’s traditional TV ratings  -- just its panel-based data (sans Amazon's first-party data) -- the game scored 15.1 million viewers, up 16% over Amazon's first “TNF” game a year ago. 

Nielsen's traditional panel-based TV measurement includes over-the-air local TV station (OTA); out-of-home (OOH); and “computer/mobile measurement”.

The game, according to the company, pulled in 7.6 million 18-49 viewers with 3.5 million viewers ages 18-34 and a median viewer age of 47 -- which Prime Video says is seven years younger than the NFL's linear networks' average of 54 years old for the first week of this season.