NFL’s TV viewership rises 5 pct. in 2018

The National Football League (NFL) got good news to start the new year, with a report showing that television viewership rose 5 percent during the 2018 regular season, compared to the previous season.

The increase came after the NFL lost viewers for two years due to the protests by some players during the playing of the national anthem.

Fewer players participated in anthem protests during the regular season that just ended.

The news is good for the NFL at a time when television viewership is falling for both regular and sports programming as consumers switch away from cable television to streaming.

During the 2018 season, the average audience per NFL game was 15.8 million, compared to 14.9 million in 2017.

Also, 46 of the 50 major sports broadcasts of 2018 were NFL games, and 13 Thursday night games streamed on Amazon Prime.

The NFL did not release viewership figures in its report for NFL Red Zone.