NEW YORK—As Amazon prepares for the landmark streaming launch of its exclusive NFL Thursday Night Football (TNF) telecasts on Prime Video, Nielsen and Amazon have signed a three-year agreement to measure the games as part of Nielsen's National TV measurement service.
Starting with the 2022 NFL season, measurement will include full coverage of the TNF broadcast—including the pregame, in-game and postgame programming—on Prime Video and Twitch, as well as the over-the-air stations in teams' local markets each week, and out-of-home viewing.
This will be the first time a streaming service will have one of its live programs measured as part of Nielsen's National TV measurement service, the companies said.
TNF will be measured and processed like all other NFL games, using Nielsen's panel, allowing for the same metrics to be reported across all other national networks, continued trending, and comparability. According to Nielsen's ratings, NFL games and shoulder programming such as pregame and postgame accounted for the top 27 live telecasts in 2021, and 47 of the top 50.
"Nielsen is the long-time leader in the measurement space, providing gold-standard currency to the media industry and we're thrilled that Amazon recognizes that and is working with us to bring a streaming service into our National TV measurement for the first time ever," said Deirdre Thomas, managing director, U.S. audience measurement product sales, Nielsen, "We are committed to delivering comparable, comprehensive measurement of all audiences, across all platforms, and this agreement to measure TNF viewership is a testament to that commitment."
"Excitement is building for this new era of Thursday Night Football. We are looking forward to delivering a new viewing experience and offering brands new ways to connect with current and future fans," said Srishti Gupta, Director of Media Measurement, Amazon Ads. "Our collaboration with Nielsen will allow us to provide advertisers with familiar campaign measurement to make apples-to-apples comparisons across their multi-channel media investments. Additionally, advertisers will have access to metrics from Amazon that will provide actionable insights to understand brand awareness, engagement, and sales. This powerful combination of first and third-party measurement is something only Amazon can provide."
Nielsen will begin measuring TNF on Amazon starting with its preseason game August 25 featuring the San Francisco 49ers and Houston Texans. Amazon's exclusive 15-game TNF regular season slate kicks off September 15 when the Los Angeles Chargers travel to Arrowhead to take on the Kansas City Chiefs. 29 of the NFL's 32 clubs will appear on TNF this season, culminating December 29 when the Tennessee Titans host the Dallas Cowboys.
