In reading the news earlier this week that the NFL had reached agreement on a new television contract for the Thursday Night package of games and that the rights to those games would be split between CBS and NBC; I could not help but think that NBC finally could reclaim their lost title of “Must See TV” for that night of the week.
I remember growing up that NBC owned the ratings on Thursday night, which continued into my high school and college years as well when the network cranked out new episodes of shows like “Friends” . Then later still it was “The Office” and a decent comedy lineup that anchored Thursday nights on “The Peacock” network.
However, that all changed for the network TV landscape with the advent of streaming devices and services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Direct that made live television viewing a concept of the past. The busy nature of people’s lives coupled with the fact that nobody works from 9 to 5 anymore, fueled that change towards the way we watch television.
The lone exception, as I have written about previously, is live sports programming. The ratings for sporting events of essentially any kind are “ratings gold” for the network which holds the broadcasting rights. The NFL takes this trend and puts it into essentially a “five times multiplier” with nearly all the top 10 most watched “programs” on TV in 2015 being NFL football games.
The ratings bonanza surrounding NFL games makes the addition of the Thursday Night Football package by NBC even more influential to advertising revenue and sponsorships that the network can attract. The network can also utilize “drop ins” to promote their own programs and events that are upcoming to a huge and diversified audience. NBC already receives a tremendous ratings boost through their agreement to broadcast Sunday Night Football which frequently is either the top watched program of a given week or in the top three spots. That ratings jump has boosted their overall viewership levels in the past and the promotional aspects of that broadcast have definitely had an impact on the ratings of their other programs.
Steep Price
NBC and CBS paid a steep price for the rights to broadcast five Thursday Night NFL games each over the next two seasons ($450 million combined between the two networks per year) which demonstrates the amazing draw that NFL live games have on advertising revenue for the networks.
In the case of NBC, they have been struggling to rebrand Thursday nights to compete with CBS and the other networks. They needed this share of the NFL package much more than CBS did, as CBS is the most watched network in terms of total viewership. Then, on the other hand, the fact that CBS has over the past two years pre-empted their regular Thursday night programming (in the Fall sweeps period no less) for NFL football demonstrates the enormous draw of the NFL. The shows in the regular CBS Thursday night lineup generate rating numbers that other networks can only dream about, yet CBS is committed to expanding their relationship with the NFL on that weeknight for two more years.
I must admit that following the ratings and the world of both media and sports business related topics, I did not initially understand why CBS would have paid the broadcasting rights fees that they shelled out for the Thursday night games initially two years ago. However, over time, I understood what the NFL and CBS were looking to do and subsequently accomplished with that initial contract. The league realized that the Thursday night games could be an attractive package to sell separately while keeping those games on NFL Network. They also identified a need to provide better promotion to both the games and the broadcast itself to make them look and feel like a “stand alone property”.
The addition of CBS Sports to that mix accomplished all of those objectives. The Thursday night games received an enhanced production value from CBS as well as their top announcing team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms (who will continue to work those games in the new contract) CBS created theme music for the Thursday night telecast and cross-promoted the package very well to appeal to a wider audience.
Now, the Thursday night package will take another step in the evolution with the addition of NBC to the fold, and the NFL will gain viewers from cross-promotion efforts on NBC programming. In addition, NBC will most assuredly use their Sunday Night Football platform to promote the upcoming Thursday Night game so that will be a very effective marketing tool.
Streaming Sold Separately
The NFL also announced that with this new Thursday night television package they would be selling the rights to stream the games over the internet separately. The streaming capability was an aspect that both CBS and NBC were hoping would be included in their contract so that they could gain additional revenue from advertising on that platform.
The NFL will now begin negotiations for the streaming rights to the Thursday night games with the obvious players being mentioned in reports: Yahoo!, You Tube, Facebook, and Amazon. The NFL partnered with Yahoo! during the 2015 regular season to stream one of the games played in London between two subpar teams, the Buffalo Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the experiment was a huge success. It remains to be seen if the recent issues surrounding Yahoo! and their announced plans to cut jobs and shut down certain areas of their business will impact these negotiations. It also bears watching if Verizon will make an attempt to purchase the internet search giant outright (Verizon and the NFL have an exclusive agreement to show live local games on Verizon supported devices).
The recent Thursday night NFL broadcasting deal made two things clear: live sports programming is the gold standard which is keeping both network and cable television relevant, and that NBC finally has something deemed as “Must See TV” at least for five weeks out of the year.