Last night’s San Francisco 49ers-Baltimore Ravens game on NFL Network was watched by an average of 10.7 million viewers (not including over-the-air stations in San Francisco and Baltimore) – ranking as the most-watched program in the eight-year history of NFL Network and the most-watched cable program ever on Thanksgiving (Nielsen cable viewership data available from 1994 to date).
49ers-Ravens topped by 50 percent last year’s NFLN Thanksgiving game (7.1 million viewers for Bengals-Jets, Nov. 25, 2010), which ranks as the No. 2 all-time cable program on Thanksgiving. NFL Network’s previous most-watched game featured the Dallas Cowboys visiting the unbeaten New Orleans Saints on Dec. 19, 2009 (10.5 million viewers).
In addition, the first-ever Thanksgiving morning NFL GameDay Morning pregame show (2.5 hours live beginning at 10:00 AM ET from M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore) drew an average of 419,000 viewers – up 138 percent from the same time period last year.
Through three games, Thursday Night Football is averaging 7.5 million viewers, up 28 percent over 2010.
Complementary coverage of 49ers-Ravens online and via mobile devices drew a 62 percent jump in live streams viewed and a nearly 40 percent increase in unique viewers over last year’s Thanksgiving night game. In addition, NFL digital traffic for full Thanksgiving Day coverage spiked 76 percent.
Thursday Night Football continues with the Seattle Seahawks visiting the Philadelphia Eagles next Thursday Dec. 1 at 8:00 PM ET. The Thursday Night Kickoff Presented by Sears pregame show begins at 6:00 PM ET. All Thursday Night Football games are available in their entirety on NFL Mobile Only From Verizon with complementary online coverage via NFL.com/LIVE Thursday Night Football presented by GMC.
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