But I think there’s more to the NFL’s further push into Christmas that has Brian Rolapp and team singing a variation of the old Christmas standard: (A lot of) you’ll be out of home for Christmas, Nielsen now counts more of you…

Given the changes in the television viewing landscape, even without the Nielsen measurement changes in 2020 to include (a lot more*) out-of-home (OOH) viewing, the NFL would’ve eventually planted the flag on Christmas in any year where Christmas falls on a Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, regardless.  

But besides being greedy and grinchy, jumping through the extra scheduling hoops to accommodate a Wednesday Christmas (and undoubtedly Tuesday, though that won’t happen until 2029) might just be smart.  

The measurement change to include OOH pretty much demands there at least be a Christmas game on a broadcast network at 4:30PM ET.

Below is a chart of Christmas Day games that aired on a broadcast network in the past ten years. There were no NFL games on Christmas in 2014 & 2015 (a Thursday and  Friday) or 2018 (a Tuesday).  

I didn’t include any Christmas Day games that were exclusive to cable, because they’re not that useful  for the“should they or shouldn’t they” discussion. 

But as far as Christmas games on broadcast networks, especially a 4:30P ET game, I definitely think they should. Even on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

In just the past 3 seasons the NFL has aired five games on Christmas that exceeded 25 million viewers, and two of them had more than 29 million viewers. In 2023 there were only 30 telecasts that averaged more than 25 million viewers. Sure, all but one of them (the aggregate network rollup of the State of the Union address) were already NFL games. But there just aren’t that many opportunities to do it, so if you get even a single extra opportunity…

Many are interested in how the NFL will schedule it and player safety concerns over more short turnaround games. Assuming the Wednesday game is the first game of that week’s slate of NFL game (usually Thursday is the first game of the week), the turn around from games played the previous Saturday is the same as Sunday to Thursday.

Tuesday is a serious challenge if it’s the week’s first game, but think the scheduling can be pulled off pretty easily if it’s the last game of the week.

I really don’t think the NFL should bother with extra games on short turnaround for any cable or streaming exclusives, though particularly with streaming, I’m sure they don’t care what I think!

But even on a Tuesday, I think it’s worth figuring out a 4:30P ET game on a broadcast network.

*Prior to 2020, Nielsen captured short-term visitors” — visitors to Nielsen panelists households, so long as the panelist manually keyed the information in (the new measurement since 2020 also automatically captures panelists out-of-home viewing via audio detection on portable people meters. Prior to 2020, Nielsen subscribers could break out the short-term visitors separately (for the 2016 Chiefs/Broncos game they represented 2.189 million out of 21.414 million, and for the 2017 Steelers/Texans game, 1.948 million ou of 14.973 million).

Since the measurement change in 2020, those short-term visitors were moved to out-of-home viewers, and Nielsen no longer offers its subscribers the ability to separate out the short-term visitors (visitors to Nielsen panelist’s households) from out-of-home viewing from Nielsen panelists who are visiting other people’s homes or bars, hotels, etc where the measurement is automatic anywhere audio can be detected.

The numbers in blue below represent networks that utilize DAI (TruTV and TUDN do now, but didn’t last December). More explanation follows the chart, but hopefully this chart is a little more useful and a lot easier on the eyes than my prior attempts.

(numbers in thousands, i.e. 70,234 for ESPN in December 2023 = 70,234,000)

It took a while but it looks like Nielsen is finally accounting for MLB network no longer being available on YouTubeTV!

Below is the traditional/non-linear breakout for the networks utilizing DAI with the streaming services. Importantly, only the households in the Traditional column are used for Nielsen ratings measurement purposes. Like it or not (and I know some don’t like it at all!) the purpose of national Nielsen measurement is to broker national advertising sales and the dynamically inserted ads aren’t national.

In thousands (000)

I think the first chart at the top is a bit more important because it includes total distribution (traditional + non linear) and if you’re going to estimate the # of homes those networks are available in and getting paid monthly fees based on, that’s the way to go. Also, particularly with truTV and TUDN, who use DAI now but didn’t a year ago, the declines would look MUCH WORSE than they really are if you used only the traditional homes, and the numbers look bad enough without all that.

I’m morally opposed to charging for data I’m not paying for and I’d guess Nielsen is even more opposed to that, so there’s no way for me to convert it into something where the hassle would be worthwhile for me. It’s much more that I couldn’t narrow it down to 10-15 minutes/day effort to make the ratings table (which I was happy to do) than money.  

There are sites (spoilertv.com is the main one that comes to mind) that post daily broadcast & cable original data and probably include more than 50% of the daily sports data I was posting. And there’s Jon Lewis’s great sportsmediawatch.com, and while it doesn’t do anything comprehensively with daily numbers, it does comprehensive weekly posts of live sports telecasts.

Thanks for visiting the site and/or subscribing to the daily e-mails.

P.S. My sources took long weekends and I still haven’t seen the Thursday numbers or I’d include them here.

Nielsen data sorted by adults 18-49 rating:

Scroll down to get to Sunday and Saturday…

Monday: Chargers/Jets Monday Night Football averaged 14.5 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2.

Sunday: The late national window (mostly Cowboys/Eagles) easily led the day.

Saturday: Led by LSU at Alabama, CBS had the top 2 most-watched CFB games

Nielsen data sorted by adults 18-49 rating:

The Tennessee Titans vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers on Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football averaged 11.5 million viewers.

That’s up a whopping 46.5 percent versus last year’s Eagles/Texans matchup that averaged 7.86 million viewers, but note: last year’s game went against Astros/Phillies game 5 of the World Series so there was more competition in general last year, and particularly in the Eagles’ home market.

The 11.5 million viewers number includes viewing via local broadcast TV affiliates in the teams’s local markets.

You may have read that Nielsen would be incorporating some of Amazon’s first-party data into the Nielsen numbers this year, but for now that’s on hold and measurement-wise, it’s an apples to apples comparison to last year.

Nielsen data sorted by adults 18-49 rating:

Nielsen data sorted by adults 18-49 rating:

Nielsen data sorted by adults 18-49 rating:

Rangers/Diamondbacks World Series Game 3 averaged 8.126 million on Fox, another record low for a World Series game.

Nielsen data sorted by adults 18-49 rating:

Sunday:

Saturday:

While the commentary will likely focus on the markets involved, arguably that the World Series began on a Friday was also a big factor. In recent years the World Series has begun on Tuesday nights.

Nielsen data sorted by adults 18-49 rating:

The 11.22 million viewers number includes viewing via local broadcast TV affiliates in the teams’s local markets.

You may have read that Nielsen would be incorporating some of Amazon’s first-party data into the Nielsen numbers this year, but for now that’s on hold and measurement-wise, it’s an apples to apples comparison to last year.

Nielsen data sorted by adults 18-49 rating:

In the table below please note that the ABC Monday Night Football number does NOT include the viewing on ESPN & ESPN2, but the FOX Rangers/Astros number already does include the 2.756 million on FS1 (but not the 149K on Fox Deportes).

Whew.

Diamondbacks/Phillies game 6 on TBS averaged 4.6 million plus another 76K for the truTV alt-cast.

Sunday:

Saturday

:

The Jacksonville Jaguars vs. the New Orleans Saints on Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football averaged 9.79 million viewers. Despite the season-low viewership for TNF, that’s up 25 percent versus last year’s Saints/Cardinals matchup that averaged 7.8 million viewers, extending Amazon’s season-long streak of double-digit gains versus last season.

The 9.79 million viewers number includes viewing via local broadcast TV affiliates in the teams’s local markets.

You may have read that Nielsen would be incorporating some of Amazon’s first-party data into the Nielsen numbers this year, but for now that’s on hold and measurement-wise, it’s an apples to apples comparison to last year.

Phillies/Diamonbacks NLCS game 3 averaged over 4 million across TBS and TruTV.

Astros/Rangers ALCS game 4 averaged 3.86 million across FS1 and Fox Deportes.

Nielsen data sorted by adults 18-49 rating: