• by Wayne Friedman , December 29, 2023

Boosted by a full season of games on ABC, rising viewing on Prime Video “Thursday Night Football,” and three big extra Christmas Day games, NFL’s average regular-season game is up 10% to 17.9 million Nielsen-measured viewers through 16 weeks of the season.

ABC, which added a full season of “Monday Night Football” games simulcast with ESPN, witnessed a massive boost of 33% to average 17.1 million. 

ESPN says that excluding two weeks (Week 3 and Week 14) where ABC and ESPN were airing different games “Monday Night Football” would be up 43% year-over-year, to average 18.3 million viewers.

Prime Video’s “TNF” package of games is 25% higher versus a year ago to 11.8 million viewers.

Three major Sunday NFL programmers continue to show strength with the sport -- Fox was up 1% to leading 19.9 million average regular-season viewers for its afternoon games, while NBC’s “Sunday Night Football”grew 7% to 19.8 million, and CBS’s afternoon game coverage rose 4% to 19.6 million.

Another major difference came from the NFL adding three major games on Christmas Day -- long a major viewing date for NBA regular-season games for family/friends. 

CBS’s Kansas City Chiefs-Las Vegas Raiders game, in which the Raiders upset the current Super Bowl champs, scored a leading 29.5 million viewers on the day. Fox’s Philadelphia Eagles-New York Giants contest earned 29.0 million; ABC/ESPN’s Baltimore Ravens-San Francisco 49ers pulled in with 27.6 million.