By Joe Reedy, Sports Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Amazon Prime Video's first regular-season game as the exclusive home of "Thursday Night Football" was a big hit.
Kansas City's 27-24 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers last Thursday averaged 15.3 million viewers across all platforms according to Nielsen and Amazon's first party measurement.
Prime Video vice president Jay Marine said in a note to staff earlier this week that "our measurement shows that the audience numbers exceeded all of our expectations for viewership."
The game averaged 13.0 million using only Nielsen's ratings. That is a 47% increase from last year's Week 2 game between Washington and the New York Giants, which averaged 8.84 million on NFL Network.
It was also the most-watched program across broadcast or cable, with CBS' "Young Sheldon" coming in second at 3.5 million.
Amazon has told advertisers it is estimating an average audience of 12.6 million viewers for the season based on Nielsen numbers. The additional numbers from Amazon's tracking comes from the company's ability to measure viewing across connected TVs, their apps and who might be watching a separate feed on Twitch.
Amazon signed a three-year agreement with Nielsen last month to track ratings. It is the first time Nielsen is tracking and include ratings from a streaming service.
The game also brought in a record number of subscribers to the company's Prime service. Marine said signups to Prime during the game outpaced Prime Day, Cyber Monday and Black Friday.
This is the first season of an 11-year agreement for Prime Video to air 15 Thursday night games.
SMPTE elects board officers, regional governors
SMPTE®,the home of media professionals, technologists, and engineers, has revealed the board officers and regional governors who will serve terms beginning in January 2025.
Three new officers--Richard Welsh as SMPTE president, Eric Gsell as SMPTE executive VP, and Polly Hickling as SMPTE Education VP--have been elected for a two-year term from Jan. 1, 2025, to Dec. 31, 2026. One SMPTE officer, Lisa Hobbs, will be continuing her service as SMPTE secretary and treasurer for another two-year term. Additionally, Raymond Yeung will be stepping into the role of standards VP on Jan. 1, 2025.
“SMPTE’s membership has spoken,” said SMPTE interim executive director Sally-Ann D’Amato. “These officers have been tasked with an important responsibility, one each of them is prepared to tackle head-on. These next two years are looking bright for SMPTE!”
In addition to the officers, 10 regional governors were elected by the Society to serve two-year 2025-2026 terms.
These include the following regional governors, re-elected to continue their service:
Asia-Pacific Region Governor
Tony Ngai, Society of Motion Imaging Ltd.
EMEA - Central & South America Region Governor
Fernando Bittencourt, FB Consultant
United Kingdom Region Governor
Chris Johns, Sky UK.
USA - Central Region Governor
William T. Hayes, Consultant
USA - Eastern Region Governor
Dover Jeanne Mundt, Riedel Communications
USA - Western Region Governor
Jeffrey F. Way, Open Drives
Also elected were four newcomers to the SMPTE Board:
Canada Region Governor
Jonathan Jobin, Grass Valley
USA - Hollywood Region Governor
Allan Schollnick, Voxx... Read More