Sports Fans “Want To Pull Their Hair Out” Trying Juggle Streaming And Linear, Nexstar’s Mike Biard Says, With ‘Thursday Night Football’ Favoring Local TV Over Prime Video
12.03.2024 - 19:09
/ deadline.com
As a sports fan, “you want to pull your hair out” when trying to toggle between streaming and linear TV, in the view of Nexstar President and COO Mike Biard.
That “less-than-ideal” user experience helps explain why 60% of viewership for Thursday Night Football occurs on local broadcast stations rather than Prime Video, the exec said, citing internal research. Biard, who joined Nexstar last summer after a long career at Fox, made the comments during an appearance Tuesday at Deutche Bank’s Media, Internet & Telecom Conference.
Under the terms of the NFL’s media rights deals, any games carried on streaming or cable TV are also made available free and over-the-air via local TV stations in the home markets of the two teams playing each other. Prime Video is two years into an 11-year deal for Thursday Night Football, and recorded a 24% jump in total viewership in its sophomore season.
“It’s discussed popularly as though Amazon has those games exclusively,” Biard said. However, he continued, “when you look at the ratings in the local markets, people tend to vote significantly greater with their eyes to go to broadcast as opposed to Amazon Prime to watch that game. We looked at it most recently, and on average about 60% of viewers will choose broadcast over Amazon Prime” in the two teams’ markets, despite steady promotion of Prime across other NFL telecasts.
Nexstar owns the largest portfolio of local TV stations in the U.S. as well as a controlling stake in the CW broadcast network.
Elaborating on the tilt toward broadcast, Biard returned to the experience in the living room.
“A TV time out comes, a player injured on the field, whatever it is. You want to change the channel, see what’s going on on another game or check