After a strong season opener, Amazon Prime’s Thursday night presentation of the NFL has seen a nearly steady week-to-week decline in viewership according to Nielsen, but Amazon is calling those numbers by the longtime ratings provider into question.
According to the official Nielsen numbers by way of Sports Business Journal, the first game broadcast exclusively on the streaming service – a matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers – drew 13 million viewers on Thursday, September 15.
That number fell to 11.03 million the following week for the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers on September 22.
From there, Thursday Night Football saw a slight uptick to 11.7 million on September 29 for the Cincinnati Bengals-Miami Dolphins matchup, but since then, it has been a continuous bleeding of viewers.
9.7 million tuned in October 6 for the Denver Broncos against the Indianapolis Colts, then 8.8 million on October 13 for the Chicago Bears against the Washington Commanders.
Last week’s game between the Arizona Cardinals and New Orleans Saints was the lowest-rated of the year at 7.8 million.
However, Amazon is disputing the official Nielsen totals, asserting for instance that the Cardinals-Saints broadcast actually drew 8.9 million viewers.
And while neither Nielsen nor Amazon has outright said the other’s count is wrong, they also have refused to cede any ground in the argument either.
“I don’t at all believe that Amazon’s numbers are not right,” Nielsen spokeswoman Connie Kim told the Associated Press. “And I don’t believe that our numbers are not right.”
Nielsen’s count is derived from extrapolating numbers out for the whole country from a panel who log their television viewing habits for the week.
Conversely, Amazon says, due to the nature of its subscription service and the data it collects, it knows exactly how many people watch any given broadcast without any need for estimates, according to the AP.
Games are also broadcast on an over-the-air channel in both local markets for the teams competing on any given Thursday night, which makes up about 9% of each game’s overall viewership according to Nielsen, who Amazon does lean on for those particular numbers.
“We wouldn’t put out our number if we weren’t comfortable that it was accurate,” Jay Marine, Amazon Prime’s sports head told the AP about the totals that Amazon has consistently asserted are larger than Nielsen’s numbers every single week.
“It’s going to take a little time,” Kim said. “As it evolves it should be one number. But we’re not quite there yet.”
With big advertising dollars factoring into streaming services for the first time, it’s an argument whose evolution will be interesting to watch.
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