NBC drew its largest cross-platform audience with its telecast of the 100th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday.
The four-hour broadcast drew an average of 31.3 million households, according to preliminary viewership data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics and released by NBC publicists late Friday evening.
The figure includes live and same-day replays on the NBC television network and Comcast’s streaming service Peacock. The initial broadcast drew 23.6 million viewers to NBC and Peacock, the network said. The parade was tape-delayed for NBC stations and affiliates on the West Coast, though it was available live through Peacock across the country.
NBC didn’t break out separate figures for Peacock, but did say the streaming platform grew its audience by 26 percent compared to the 2023 telecast of the parade. Notably, during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, only around one in five Olympic viewers watched the event on Peacock, even though all Olympic competitions were carried live on the platform.
“The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is an event in which we take enormous pride, and it’s an absolute joy to know that there was a record number of people watching across both NBC and Peacock,” Jen Neal, the EVP of Live Events and Specials at NBC Universal Entertainment, said in a statement on Friday. “The parade is a tradition like no other. Year after year, it’s the best way to kick off the holiday season, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it with our partners at Macy’s.”
“The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a beloved tradition that annually marks the beginning of the holiday season,” Will Cross, the Executive Producer of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC, said on Friday. “Macy’s is honored to bring this iconic experience to life and create moments of inspiration and joy through world-class entertainment that only we can deliver for our customers and the nation.”
While finalized viewership data is still a few days away from being released, preliminary ratings shared by NBC on Friday seem to indicate that the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade drew a larger audience than the network’s prime-time broadcast of a National Football League match-up between the Green Bay Packers and the Miami Dolphins. The football game averaged 26.6 million viewers and peaked with just over 31 million viewers, NBC Sports said. Those figures included streaming viewership on Peacock, the NBC Sports app and NFL Plus. By comparison, the NFL broadcast on Fox earlier in the day averaged 38.5 million viewers on broadcast, cable and streaming platforms.
