The NFL’s average viewership has moved ahead of last season after recovering from a double-digit decline in Week 1, with regular-season game windows averaging 18.8 million viewers across television and digital platforms through Week 5.
According to Sports Media Watch, the figure represents a 1% increase year over year and the highest average recorded at this stage of an NFL season. Viewership was down 13% in Week 1, but the gap narrowed to 4% after Week 2 and 2% after Week 3 before the league moved into positive territory.
Week 5 game windows averaged 17.3 million viewers, up 5% from the same week last year and the highest Week 5 average since 2019.
CBS and primetime football post strong seasons
CBS is averaging 19.48 million viewers, marking its most-watched season in the Nielsen people-meter era. Monday Night Football is averaging 19.3 million viewers, its highest season average since 1999, while Thursday Night Football is averaging 17.52 million, its best performance since 2015.
Fox led Week 5 with its late Sunday doubleheader window, which drew a rating of 11.6 and an average audience of 26.70 million. Featuring the San Francisco 49ers against the Seattle Seahawks in most markets, the broadcast was up 21% in ratings and 31% in viewership compared with the equivalent window last year. It was the third-largest NFL audience of the season.
Fox also delivered the two most-watched Sunday afternoon windows. The first half of its doubleheader averaged 17.41 million viewers, up substantially from 10.55 million a year earlier.
Monday Night Football leads primetime
The Bills–Rams matchup on Monday Night Football averaged 19.8 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and, for the first time, NFL Network. Although the audience was down 11% from last year’s Chiefs–Jaguars game, it was the most-watched Week 5 edition of Monday Night Football since 1998, excluding the higher audience for Vikings–Packers that year.
The game also delivered the week’s largest primetime audience for the second consecutive week.
NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcast of Ravens–Falcons averaged 17.02 million viewers, down 22% from last year’s Patriots–Bills matchup. It was NBC’s lowest-rated and least-watched game of the season.
The Falcons’ run of three consecutive primetime appearances has proved challenging for broadcasters: two of those games became the least-watched editions of their respective primetime packages this season.
Mixed results across other broadcasts
CBS averaged 16.62 million viewers for its Sunday afternoon singleheader, down from 19.56 million a year earlier. That earlier broadcast was the network’s most-watched singleheader in any week since 2013.
The NFL Network’s international-series broadcast of Eagles–Jaguars drew 8.10 million viewers when local over-the-air simulcasts were included, up 23% year over year. On NFL Network alone, the game averaged 6.65 million viewers, a 10% increase from the comparable broadcast last season.
Prime Video averaged 16.7 million viewers for Tampa Bay Buccaneers–Dallas Cowboys on Thursday Night Football. As previously reported, it was the largest audience on record for a Week 5 edition of the Thursday-night package.
Measurement changes complicate comparisons
The year-over-year figures come with important caveats. Nielsen did not include out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020 and did not fully account for it until 2025. The 2026 season is also only the second under a measurement methodology that combines traditional panel data with “Big Data” from smart TVs, set-top boxes and first-party sources.
Nielsen has also recently adjusted its methodology to better account for people watching games together.
These changes mean that comparisons with earlier seasons should be treated with caution, even as the latest figures show the NFL’s average audience recovering from its slow start to the season.