Ratings for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football will almost certainly be higher in 2023 than they were in 2022. That is because Nielsen will use the company’s viewership data when it reports ratings for the game each week.
Last season, the audience was 18% larger for Thursday Night Football than what Nielsen reported according to Amazon’s own data.
Nielsen ratings data is a major part of advertising sales for any media company. Amazon having official acknowledgement of their data showing a bigger audience than initially reported is a big win for the company.
This marks the first time that Nielsen has agreed to use a company’s internal data in reporting ratings. The practice will only apply to audience measurement for live programming on streaming services.
“We are making modifications for live streaming measurement to more accurately reflect the growing impact of streaming and first-party data,” Nielsen said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.
Before the move becomes official, the Media Ratings Council must finish a review and sign off on the partnership. The WSJ reports that could happen as early as next week.
