Despite barely any opposition from its major broadcast competitors, CBS’s first “Thursday Night Football” game of the season between the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills was a ratings disappointment compared to the 2015 TNF opener.
Only 11.44 million watched the Sept. 15 matchup, a drop of 29 percent from last year’s record total of 21.8 million viewers from both CBS and the NFL Network, Deadline.com reported Friday morning.
The drop was roughly the same in the coveted 18-49 marketing demographic, reported Deadline, saying the 3.8/14 rating was a 28 percent decrease from the first Thursday night game of 2015 between the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs.
The Jets-Bills game was also the first time a Thursday game was live-streamed via Twitter, which may partially account for the drop in viewership.
The San Francisco-based microblogging service reportedly paid the NFL $10 million for rights to live stream 10 Thursday night matchups, a dollar figure that financial news and analysis site Motley Fool described in April as “surprisingly paltry.”
On Wednesday, Twitter launched a separate app for devices such as Apple TV and Amazon’s Fire TV, designed particularly for viewing live video events such as Thursday Night Football.
After reviewing feedback on Twitter, CNNMoney described the reception of the new livestreaming deal as “very positive.”
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