Three trends from the 2023 NFL season continued in Week 14 – the Philadelphia Eagles remain one of the league’s top draws, CBS remains the league’s most-watched network, and Prime Video keeps increasing by double digits from 2022.
Viewership for the Eagles’ loss to the Dallas Cowboys on NBC’s Sunday Night Football didn’t hit the heights many (including myself) expected. However, the game averaged 26.3 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, per NBC’s Total Audience Delivery metric. That’s good for the most-watched game of the weekend and the most-watched December SNF game since a Giants-Cowboys game in 2016. It’s also the fifth time an Eagles game has crossed 26 million viewers in six weeks. The one outlier was Week 10 when Philadelphia was on a bye.
The NFL on CBS also continued its astounding run this season. The Bills’ upset win over the Chiefs in the national game of the week averaged 26.044 million viewers, a hair behind the NBC average for SNF. That average is down from 49ers-Eagles last week on Fox but up from last year’s Week 14 national window.
Through 14 weeks, CBS has been averaging 19.483 million viewers for the NFL (its best mark since 1998), and the network’s national window is averaging a league-high 24.853 million viewers.
NFL ON CBS Continues Record-Setting Season with More Than 26 Million Viewers for Sunday’s National Game pic.twitter.com/G5MSxNLxbE
— CBS Sports PR (@CBSSportsGang) December 12, 2023
The regional window on CBS, a four-game slate headlined by Jaguars-Browns, averaged 15.025 million viewers. That’s up from the early half of the doubleheader last week and last year.
Fox had the singleheader window, a five-game slate headlined by Seahawks-49ers going head-to-head with Bills-Chiefs. The window averaged 17.03 million viewers, up from last week’s singleheader on CBS and down from last year’s singleheader.
On Prime Video, Thursday Night Football delivered yet another double-digit gain. The Patriots’ win over the Steelers averaged 10.71 million viewers, down from last week but up 30% from last year. TNF is averaging 12.42 million viewers this season, a 29% increase from last year’s average through the same amount of games and a 30% increase on the full-season average. With just three games left this season, it seems likely that TNF will finish the season significantly up from the 2022 season.
Data for the Monday Night Football two-game window, featuring Dolphins-Titans and Packers-Giants airing simultaneously, was unavailable.
Week 15 looks pretty good on paper. On Thursday, Prime Video starts the week with a Chargers-Raiders matchup that has far less juice than it possibly could have had three months ago. NFL Network has a Saturday tripleheader, featuring Vikings-Browns early, Steelers-Colts in the late afternoon, and Broncos-Lions in primetime. CBS has the singleheader, highlighted by Jets-Dolphins in the 1 p.m. ET window. Fox has the doubleheader, featuring the flexed Chiefs-Patriots game early and Cowboys-Bills getting national distribution in the game of the week window. NBC will air Ravens-Jaguars on Sunday Night Football, and ESPN has Eagles-Seahawks on Monday Night Football.
[Data via Sports Media Watch]
