Amazon is in the spotlight this week. The streaming giant will carry its first ever regular season NFL game on Thursday when the Chiefs visit the Chargers on Thursday Night Football.
Plenty of stories have been written about what the company hopes to bring to football coverage. Now it is time for fans to actually see it.
Marie Donoghue and members of the Amazon studio crew met with members of the media this week. The company’s VP of Global Sports Video said she hoped that her team could match the expectations fans have for the Amazon product based on the preseason game it carried.
“Our number one focus is delivering the best broadcast for fans, and we’re thrilled with the quality of our production and from the reaction from fans from our pre-season game,” she said. “It was overwhelmingly positive.”
Donoghue says she is “not concerned at all” about how many people are watching on Thursday night. Amazon is thinking long-term when determining the success of Thursday Night Football, which it will be carrying for the next eleven seasons.
“Of course we want the biggest audience possible, but this is a big change for fans and we know it’ll take some time. So we’re very comfortable with that. We’re not overly focused with the first night. We are overly focused on our production and what we deliver for fans. We’ve got an incredibly high bar that we set for ourselves, so we know this will evolve over time and I still believe it’s a once in a generation opportunity.”
How many people will be watching? Well, the number that gets reported will come from Nielsen, the same company that delivers the numbers for traditional, linear TV broadcasts of the NFL.
Streaming services like Amazon don’t really need a third party to tell them how many people are watching a particular program. Donoghue said the partnership is about serving potential advertisers in a familiar way.
“Nielsen brings currency,” she said. “You know, that’s that’s what the industry is used to. That’s what advertisers are used to.”
Traditional television ratings are a brand new thing in the world of streaming television. Just like the broadcast itself, Marie Donoghue says the relationship with Nielsen will go through its own series of updates and changes.
“This is an inaugural launch for Nielsen as well. So we’re very comfortable with having those numbers out there,” Donoghue said. “I would also say the relationship with Nielsen will probably evolve as well because this is groundbreaking for them. So we’re proud of what we’re doing.”
