Cheese grating fun: Bears playoff game draw record audiences for Amazon Prime
Fox 32 also scores big ratings with simulcast
Chicago’s NFL Lakefront Team (for now) drew a tremendous audience in a thrilling victory Saturday night in a game that will be remembered for years to come.
The Chicago Bears’ NFC Wild Card Game from Soldier Field against their hated arch-rival Green Bay Packers drew a record audience for streamer Amazon Prime, with an eye-popping 31.61 million viewers and a 12.5 household rating according to Nielsen, making it the most-streamed NFL game in history, passing a record set this past Christmas with a Lions-Vikings game on Netflix. The Bears game peaked at 34.16 million at 8:15 p.m. CT.
With the game airing on Prime, the NFL had to find local stations for carriage, and thanks to a deal Fox made with Amazon when they acquired the rights to Thursday Night Football, the network’s WFLD Chicago and WITI had the rights (Scripps’ NBC affiliate WGBA had the rights in Green Bay.) The Wild Card contest was a winner for Fox 32, drawing a 24 household rating, peaking at 25.5 at 10:15 p.m. when the Bears were on the comeback trail, meaning 932,000 households in the Chicago area were tuned in (Amazon numbers were not included in this total.) It’s the second-highest-rated Bears game on broadcast TV this season, only behind a game against the San Francisco 49ers on December 28.
Nielsen expanded its ratings methodology this year, adding out-of-home viewing to its totals earlier this year and shifting to a Big Data + Panel formula last September, incorporating data from Smart TVs and set-top boxes.
There was some hand-wringing from some as a playoff game featuring the oldest rivalry in the NFL playing each other for only the third time in such a situation, wondering why the league would put a marquee match-up on Prime as linear networks (especially NBC and ESPN) wanted what was clearly the biggest game of the weekend. But the league had a lot of confidence that Prime would deliver big numbers, and the streamer came through.
The decision to put the marquee game on Prime and its ratings success also signal streaming is now on the same level playing field as broadcast, illustrated by the Academy Awards’ recent defection to YouTube – something that wouldn’t have happened even five years ago.
The Bears’ turnaround under new head coach Ben Johnson has been a tremendous one, transforming a once-perennial laughing stock (remember when this space lobbied for Bears’ games NOT to be shown in prime-time?) to a legitimate Super Bowl contender, with fourth-quarter comeback wins, leaving viewers glued to the edge of their seats – the perfect scenario for the league. Despite a rough start, Bears QB Caleb Williams has made key plays at the right time, cementing his status as the starter for years to come and one of the biggest sports stars in the city. The Bears’ playoff win was the first in fifteen years.
And beating the hated Packers two out of three times this season and eliminating them from the playoffs is the icing on the cake.
The Bears now face the Los Angeles Rams in the Divisional Round this Sunday at Soldier Field in another huge prime-time match-up, this time on NBC at 5:30 p.m., where the numbers are expected to surpass 31 million easily. Locally, NBC 5 (WMAQ-TV) will air a Playoff Extra postgame show afterwards, delaying the premiere of the new Tracy Morgan sitcom The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins by a half-hour.
America Wins when the Packers lose on my dad’s side of the family my grandparents who passed away 18 & 17 years ago grew up in Packer country in Appleton WI growing up in Michigan been a Lions fan since 89. Only thing I’ll thank the Packers for is not drafting Barry Sanders in the 89 draft my favorite Lion of all time. West Michigan is a defacto Bears market outside when the Lions aren’t on at the same time unless the Lions are on FOX17 or WWMT and if either CBS or FOX have the Lions and can air the Bears game. Get about 10 or 11 Bears with national TV put in. Only time the Bears weren’t aired was when they were really bad Justin Fields years and I remember WWMT saying we aren’t airing the Bears this weekend, which I think was Bills VS Miami that they aired.
In the 90s could get Bears games since cable had a couple of South Bend TV stations WSBT at my first house I lived in even when FOX got the NFL NFC package WSBT still aired the Bears the other was WNDU and aired the Colts. Could watch 3 NFL teams Lions, Bears, & Colts that was only a few thou as it was Cablevision that was major cable company in town, older neighborhoods had a few choices otherwise it was Cablevision or nothing which second house was only choice Cablevison or as I like to call them Suckyvsion was glad when they left town in fall of 2000. Sorry for rambling on.