Prime Video to Bring HDR Streaming, AI Features, More to ‘Thursday Night Football’ This Season
The football season has begun, and the NFL’s first “Thursday Night Football” matchup of 2023 takes place on Thursday, Sept. 14 when the Philadelphia Eagles play their home opener against the Minnesota Vikings. Nationally, the game will be exclusively available to stream with a subscription to Prime Video.
Ahead of the game, Amazon is announcing some brand-new features and enhancements to the “TNF” broadcast that will be rolled out this season. For starters, all “TNF” games will now be produced and delivered in High Dynamic Range (HDR). That will help deepen the contrast between light and dark on the screen, and make colors more vivid so fans are never confused about who has the ball in key situations.
As previously reported, Amazon is also integrating artificial intelligence into “Thursday Night Football” streams. The new “Key Plays” feature will use AI to identify top momentum-swinging moments in the game and allow fans to watch them any time. AI will also be used to track the movements of defensive players before the snap, analyze them, and show audiences “players of interest” who might blitz or drop into coverage unexpectedly on a specific play.
The “Prime Targets” feature will also use AI, identifying players that are open and likely to convert a first down. Using RFID chips embedded in a player’s safety equipment, Prime Targets will be able to tell when a receiver is open for a big play, and will use a green orb to identify them to viewers. Prime Video will also use multiple overlays to show when a kicker is getting closer to their idea field goal range. All of these on-field, AI-driven improvements will be available on the “Prime Vision with Next-Gen Stats” alternate stream that is available with every “TNF” game.
This is the second season that Prime Video will be the exclusive home of national telecasts of “TNF” games. Fans living in the markets of the teams playing can still find “TNF” games locally on broadcast channels. It will be interesting to see which demographic groups opt for the Prime Vision with Next-Gen Stats stream of “TNF” games now that the new updates are in place; last season, Prime Video saw a big ratings drop for Thursday games as compared to 2021, but also drew in a higher portion of younger viewers.
Amazon is set to roll with these new enhancements, but it will have to wait before it can help give its own ratings a boost. The company had an agreement with Nielsen to incorporate Amazon ratings data in with Nielsen’s own for “TNF” streams this year, but concerns raised by other NFL broadcasters led Nielsen to step back from that plan, at least temporarily. Users can tune in to watch Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit and the rest of the “TNF” gang on Prime Video every Thursday of the season at 8:15 p.m. ET.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Amazon Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.