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87-421: Pit voices were provided by Broadway Inspirational Voices. Source: Broadway World All numbers composed by Charlie Smalls save for the following: "Tornado" is composed by Timothy Graphenreed and Harold Wheeler . "Emerald City Ballet (Psst)" is composed by Graphenreed and George Faison . "We Got It" is written by Ne-Yo, Elijah Kelley, Harvey Mason Jr, and Stephen Oremus. "Everybody Rejoice/A Brand New Day"

174-487: A Christmas Day game . As with the previous contract, all games will be simulcast by NFL Network. Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that the league was "thrilled to add NBC to the TNF mix, a trusted partner with a proven track record of success broadcasting NFL football in primetime, and look forward to expanding with a digital partner for what will be a unique tri-cast on broadcast, cable and digital platforms." On April 5, 2016, it

261-424: A 30-second commercial during The Wiz ranged between $ 330,000 to $ 350,000, marking a drop from the $ 345,000 to $ 400,000 cost of ad time during Peter Pan Live! . The decrease in ad cost was attributed to the modest viewership of Peter Pan in comparison to The Sound of Music Live! , which an analyst felt was a result of the reduced novelty of the production in comparison to The Sound of Music . Reddi-wip served as

348-509: A Thursday game following a Sunday game that guarantees each team a nationally televised game with 26 of them playing on Thursday Night Football and the other six playing on Thanksgiving. In addition, matchups are created with the intent to minimize travel in the leadup to the Thursday game. In general, the road team will play a home game the Sunday prior, while the home team will either play at home or

435-408: A digital media company. NFL Network and Fox ceded the final season of the existing contract to Amazon, resulting in its coverage launching in 2022. As before, all of the games are also streamed for free on Twitch, and aired on local broadcast television stations in the markets of the opposing teams as per NFL rules. As with all other nationally televised games, they are also carried on radio as part of

522-447: A game should be broadcast. Jared Stacy, Amazon's head of global live sports production, stated that they were "challenged by our leadership to figure out what’s next and to take some swings". Gaudelli went as far as suggesting that the on-field down and distance graphic use Amazon's "smile" symbol as an arrow. Amazon will employ 13 "super slo-mo" cameras, two Skycams, and TrackMan ball tracking. Pinar Toprak composed new theme music for

609-564: A higher fee; although, as with all other national cable telecasts of NFL games, the league's own regulations require the games to be syndicated to over-the-air television stations in the local markets of the teams. These issues were magnified in 2007, when a game between the New England Patriots and New York Giants that saw the Patriots defeat the Giants to close out a perfect regular season

696-731: A main sponsor of the presentation; Walmart , which served as a major sponsor of NBC's previous live musicals, declined to participate. NBC produced themed commercials to air throughout the special as part of the brand's "Share the Joy" campaign; one, which was timed to air after the corresponding scene in the musical, featured " A Brand New Day " being performed by students of the Excel Academy in Hyattsville, Maryland —a school which ConAgra Foods had donated money to in support of musical arts. The Wiz Live! received positive reviews from critics, who praised

783-526: A multi-year carriage agreement on October 6, 2019. On April 29, 2020, Amazon renewed its digital rights through the 2022 season, maintaining the TNF simulcasts and digital content, and also adding exclusive international rights to one late-season game per-season outside of the package (which will be produced by CBS). For its simulcasts, Amazon replaced the British feed with a new "Scout's Feed" with extended analysis by Bucky Brooks and Daniel Jeremiah (akin to

870-443: A portion of the package on their respective network. CBS was the first rightsholder under this model, airing nine games on broadcast television, and producing the remainder of the package to air exclusively on NFL Network to satisfy its carriage agreements. The package was also extended to Week 16 of the season, and included a new Saturday doubleheader split between CBS and NFL Network. On January 18, 2015, CBS and NFL Network extended

957-452: A road game against a nearby opponent the Sunday before hosting the Thursday game. However, there will be instances where the road team comes in having played a road game the Sunday prior in a nearby city that makes it possible for teams from far away to play each other on Thursday, as well as consolidate long road trips for the road team. For the 2012 season, a Spanish-language broadcast was added as second audio program . In January 2014, it

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1044-483: A secondary English broadcast featuring soccer commentators Ross Dyer and Tommy Smyth (intended for international viewers unfamiliar with the rules and terminology of American football), and a pre-show hosted by Tiki Barber and Curtis Stone that featured presentations of NFL merchandise available for purchase on Amazon. The November 16, 2017 telecast between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans

1131-564: A similar move, the Baltimore Ravens had their scheduled Week 13 TNF game against the Dallas Cowboys postponed to the following Tuesday. The Ravens had dealt with their own outbreak, which included positive tests from players including reigning MVP Lamar Jackson . For that reason, the Ravens had to postpone their Thanksgiving game against the Pittsburgh Steelers three times, the first time

1218-782: A three-year deal, allowing the games' viewership on Prime Video, Twitch, out-of-home, and on local broadcast stations to be tabulated in the Nielsen ratings . Amazon carried a preseason game on August 25, 2022, featuring the San Francisco 49ers at the Houston Texans . The first regular season game on September 15, 2022 featured the Los Angeles Chargers at the Kansas City Chiefs . Nielsen reported an average of 13 million viewers across all measured platforms, which were in line with

1305-464: A weighted average of 73 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The Wiz Live! was seen by 11.5 million viewers, with a 3.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic. Although higher than Peter Pan Live! , it trailed a Thursday Night Football game on CBS between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers , which was seen by around 17 million. Average household viewership

1392-560: Is in the SNF package, in order for NBC to allow Michaels over a week's rest before the end of the season. Tirico would also call the December 22, 2016 TNF game alongside Collinsworth, as well as two NBC-produced Thursday Night Special game broadcasts on December 18 and Christmas Day, respectively, both alongside former USFL and NFL quarterback Doug Flutie , who serves as the analyst for NBC's college football coverage as well. On May 31, 2017, it

1479-459: Is not allowing commercials for alcoholic beverages to air during its telecasts (although they may still appear in advertising slots sold by the league, or as part of commercial time held by local broadcasters). As with all other NFL telecasts not on national broadcast television, all Thursday Night Football games are required to be simulcast on a broadcast television station in the home market of each participating team. To ensure availability of

1566-563: Is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time (8:20 prior to 2022 and 8:25 prior to 2018). In the past, games in the package also aired occasionally on Saturdays in the later portion of the season, as well as select games from the NFL International Series (since 2017, these games have been branded as NFL Network Specials ). Debuting on November 23, 2006 ,

1653-519: Is written by Luther Vandross . The production, a co-production between Universal Television and Cirque du Soleil Theatrical – who provided special acrobatic performers for the "Tornado", "You Can't Win", and "Funky Monkeys" sequences – was a follow-up to NBC's live musical events, The Sound of Music Live! and Peter Pan Live! . Like the previous specials, The Wiz Live! was televised from Grumman Studios in Bethpage, New York . The role of Dorothy

1740-443: The NFL on Westwood One Sports package. The NFL Network's coverage was not the first time that NFL games were covered on Thursday or Saturday. ABC televised occasional Thursday night games from 1978 to 1986 as part of its Monday Night Football package . Prior to the new contract, ESPN carried a handful of sporadic Thursday night games (usually those displaced from Sunday night ) and

1827-602: The African-American community and other communities of color during the George Floyd protests . Harold Wheeler (musician) William Harold Wheeler Jr. (born July 14, 1943), is an American orchestrator, composer, conductor, arranger, record producer, and music director. He has received numerous Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominations for orchestration, and won the 2003 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations for Hairspray . Wheeler first worked in

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1914-681: The ESPN "film room" broadcasts of college football games), and " NFL Next Live" on Twitch (with viewer interactivity). On October 19, because of a COVID-19 outbreak involving the Tennessee Titans , the originally scheduled Thursday Night game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills , was moved to the following Monday due to the Titans playing the Bills the previous Tuesday. The Chiefs won 26–17. In

2001-655: The NFL on Thanksgiving are both broadcast as part of NBC Sports ' Sunday Night Football contract and are not included in Thursday Night Football , although the Thanksgiving primetime game was previously part of the package from 2006 until 2011. In 2014 , the NFL shifted the package to a new model to increase its prominence. The entire TNF package would be produced by a separate rightsholder, who would hold rights to simulcast

2088-514: The TNF package in Canada through the end of the 2016 season but has not yet acquired digital rights (the majority of the NFL's media rights in Canada are owned by Rogers's rival, Bell Media ), successfully forced Twitter to block the game streams in that country , overriding the league's insistence that the free stream be global. Due to the streaming deal, over-the-top television providers PlayStation Vue and Sling TV are also required to black out

2175-511: The X-Ray feature to access statistics and other content. Fox employed 45 cameras, a dual-skycam setup, triple-lens pylon cameras, and Intel True View replay systems where available. Fox NFL Thursday originated from Fox News Channel 's Studio F in New York City, as well as an outdoor plaza setup on Sixth Avenue ( Fox Square ) with a scaled football field and an audience. A new graphics package

2262-538: The long-standing slate of college football games held on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Thursday Night Football had gone on hiatus during Thanksgiving week since 2012, as the Thanksgiving primetime game had been reassigned to the Sunday Night Football package. As an e-commerce company, the game is expected to leverage a captive audience of holiday shoppers for " Black Friday " as a potential audience, including

2349-408: The 1960s as the musical director (MD) for Burt Bacharach making him the first African-American MD of a major pop act. He also was doing arranging for Tony Orlando and Nina Simone during that time. He was named Music Conductor for the 76th Academy Awards , becoming only the second African-American conductor in the academy's history. He also was a music arranger on the 79th Academy Awards . Wheeler

2436-436: The 2012 season, the Thanksgiving primetime game was moved from NFL Network to NBC's Sunday Night Football package. During Super Bowl week in 2012, it was announced that the Thursday Night Football package would expand from eight to 13 games and air on NFL Network, again soliciting and rejecting offers from Turner Sports and Comcast. For the four seasons from 2012 to 2016, and again in 2020 and 2021 all 32 teams played

2523-443: The 2016 and 2017 seasons. CBS and NBC would each air five games (resulting in a schedule of ten games on broadcast television in comparison to eight under the previous deal), followed by an additional eight games exclusively on NFL Network to satisfy NFL Network's retransmission consent contracts with cable providers; the eight NFL Network-exclusive games included six Thursday contests, a Sunday morning International Series contest, and

2610-403: The 2023 season, teams are not required to have a Thursday game following a Sunday, while teams can play up to two Thursday games following a Sunday game per season. The league also approved the option of flexing Sunday games into Thursday despite overwhelming opposition from players and coaches. Up to two games from weeks 13 through 17 can be flexed with 28 days advanced notice, up from 15 days that

2697-490: The Fox Sports app, Prime Video, and to participating television providers. HDR was only supported through television providers, but Fox stated that HDR and surround sound support would be enabled via streaming "soon". Due a carriage dispute between Dish Network and Fox resulting in the removal of its owned-and-operated stations and cable networks, it was reported that Fox had pushed NFL Network to black out its simulcast of

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2784-469: The Fox Sports bid, which was intended to showcase Fox 's continued commitment to sports after the sale of its entertainment businesses to ESPN's majority-owner The Walt Disney Company (which excluded the Fox network itself and Fox Sports' national operations, such as FS1, among other assets). CBS and NBC were also considering renewing their existing contracts, but had requested a lower rights fee to compensate for

2871-507: The NFL announced that CBS had acquired the partial rights to TNF for the 2014 season. Under the agreement, all of the Thursday Night Football telecasts would be produced by CBS Sports and called by the network's primary announcing team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms . The first eight games of the season were simulcast nationally on NFL Network and CBS; the remaining games in the package only aired nationally on NFL Network, but per league broadcast policies, were simulcast on local stations in

2958-545: The NFL back to ABC for the first time since Super Bowl XL and the move of Monday Night Football to ESPN in 2006. The remaining games would remain exclusive to NFL Network, in order to satisfy carriage agreements with television providers guaranteeing a minimum number of games to air exclusively on the channel. The decision came as the league wished to heighten the profile of its Thursday night games, which had suffered from relatively lower viewership and advertising revenue in comparison to other games. On February 5, 2014,

3045-471: The NFL unveiled the games scheduled for Thursday Night Football in April 2014; CBS's slate of games featured a number of major divisional rivalries, including New York Giants–Washington , Green Bay–Minnesota , and its opening game on September 11, 2014, featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens . In the wake of the controversy surrounding Ravens player Ray Rice (who had been removed from

3132-684: The October 3, 2019 game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks for Dish Network subscribers to prevent circumvention. However, due to a clause in Dish's carriage agreement that forbade the channel from performing provider-specific programming substitutions, NFL Network agreed to forego the simulcast entirely, and the game was made exclusive to Fox (making it the first TNF game to not air in some capacity on NFL Network). Fox and Dish agreed to

3219-412: The Thursday night broadcast. He was joined by NFL Network draft analyst and NBC Notre Dame color man Mike Mayock , and the pairing spent three seasons calling games. As a result of CBS taking over production responsibilities for the TNF broadcasts, its number one broadcast team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms took over the broadcast booth. With NBC adding games in 2016, Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth,

3306-405: The acting and singing abilities of the cast and for being an improvement over the two previous live NBC musicals. On Rotten Tomatoes , the show has a 91% rating, based on 33 reviews, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The site's consensus states: " The Wiz Live! is several notches above NBC's other musical broadcasts thanks to bold performances and large-scale production pieces." Metacritic reports

3393-470: The average numbers that were garnered by Fox's Thursday Night Football broadcasts in the 2021 season, and an increase of five million over that year's season opener (which was an NFL Network-exclusive game). On October 18, 2022, the NFL announced that Thursday Night Football would add a Friday afternoon game on the Friday after Thanksgiving beginning in 2023; Thursday Night Football had taken Thanksgiving week off since. The game will compete directly with

3480-632: The broadcast networks used to air several national games on Saturday afternoons in mid-to-late December after the college football regular season ended. Incidentally, the only reason the league is even allowed to televise football games on Saturday night stems from a legal loophole: the league's antitrust exemption, the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 , was written when the NFL regular season ended in mid-December, and as such, it contains specific language that prohibits televising NFL games in most markets on Friday nights and all day on Saturdays between

3567-409: The broadcast team of NBC Sunday Night Football , were required under league contract to do the same. NBC had initially hired former Monday Night Football play-by-play man Mike Tirico for Thursdays before the league nixed the idea of any separate broadcast teams for Sunday and Thursday nights. Tirico would eventually call three Sunday Night Football games, including the Thanksgiving night game which

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3654-435: The broadcasts at commercial establishments such as bars and restaurants (which might not be configured to handle streaming-only broadcasts), Amazon partnered with DirecTV (which had historically carried NFL Sunday Ticket ) to carry its Thursday Night Football telecasts on special channels for its business customers. In addition, Amazon reached an agreement with Nielsen Media Research to provide audience measurement under

3741-537: The current arrangement with CBS; the league also requested that bidders outline goals for "growing" NFL Network. The league was also reportedly interested in selling non-exclusive digital rights to simulcast the games to another partner, such as Amazon.com , Apple Inc. , Google , or Yahoo! (which exclusively streamed an International Series as part of a trial during the 2015 season, but would shut down its original video content service in January 2016). In January 2016, it

3828-415: The decreasing viewership of the NFL ( TNF had been cited as one factor in the downturn, due to a perceived oversaturation of nationally televised games). It was also reported that the NFL would also allow digital companies to make bids for exclusive rights to the TNF package which forego a television partner entirely, unlike the previous non-exclusive deals with Twitter and Amazon. On January 30, 2018, it

3915-493: The early game, while CBS aired the second, prime time game. The NFL considered CBS's bid to be the most attractive, owing to CBS's overall ratings stature (CBS had been the highest-rated broadcast network in the United States since the 2005-06 television season), a commitment to aggressively promote the Thursday games across its properties, and its plans to utilize CBS Sports' top NFL talent and production staff across all of

4002-410: The fact that Simms remains under contract with CBS through the next several years. However, the network confirmed via press release that Romo's duties would include Sunday and Thursday games. With TNF moving to Fox in 2018, the network announced that its top team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman would call the games, after months of speculation that five-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning would be hired by

4089-516: The games in the package to ensure a major improvement in quality over the previous, in-house productions. CBS staff also cited experience with its joint coverage of the NCAA Men's basketball tournament with Turner Sports as an advantage in its collaboration with NFL Network staff, as talent from both networks collaborate on pre-game, halftime and post-game coverage. During the games, a distinct graphics package co-branded with both CBS and NFL Network logos

4176-529: The impromptu change prompted NBC to experiment with using the strategy for the full game. The Skycam Angle was also used for the December 14 telecast between the Denver Broncos and the Indianapolis Colts . In early January 2018, Bloomberg reported that ABC/ESPN and Fox Sports had both made bids for the next TNF package. Both Fox and Fox Sports 1 were named as potential outlets for the package in

4263-567: The main Fox feed, British English, and Spanish options, the Amazon Prime streams offer an alternate commentary feed featuring ESPN anchor Hannah Storm and NFL Network chief correspondent Andrea Kremer —the first all-female commentary team in NFL history. The Twitch streams offer access to the service's standard chat room (along with special football-themed emotes ), an interactive extension, and co-streams featuring prominent personalities, while streams on Amazon Fire devices offer integration with

4350-595: The network after the 2007 season and his then-HBO colleague Bob Papa , who is also the radio voice of the New York Giants , was brought in to replace him. Collinsworth stayed on until the end of the 2008 season, then left to take over for the retiring John Madden as lead analyst on NBC Sunday Night Football . NFL Network replaced him with Matt Millen , who returned to broadcasting in 2009, and then added former ESPN analyst Joe Theismann for 2010. For 2011, then ESPN and now CBS play-by-play man Brad Nessler took over

4437-482: The network to call their Thursday games. They were joined by Erin Andrews , who normally works with Buck and Aikman on Sundays alongside Kristina Pink and Mike Pereira , one of two rule analysts for Fox. In previous seasons prior to Fox's TNF contract, Buck did not call any NFL games during late October, working Major League Baseball playoff games instead. For 2018, none of Fox's scheduled MLB playoff broadcasts landed on

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4524-435: The next round of NFL broadcasting agreements from 2023 through 2033. NFL Network, Fox, and Amazon subsequently opted out of the final year of the current agreement, meaning that Amazon's rights would begin in the 2022 NFL season instead. Also in that time, reports have verified that Amazon was close to partnering with NBC Sports to produce their broadcasts, and their contract is likely to be a three-year deal with Amazon having

4611-459: The option to extend it to five. This partnership became materialized as along with lead play-by-play announcer Al Michaels , Sunday Night Football producer Fred Gaudelli moved to Amazon as part of collaboration from NBC Sports; Gaudelli explained that his production operated under a notion that they needed to produce a "great" broadcast before they could start "breaking things and being different", as NFL viewers had specific expectations as to how

4698-452: The package to third-parties, beginning with Twitter in 2016, and Amazon in 2017—initially on Prime Video , and later also being carried freely on Amazon-owned live streaming platform Twitch . In 2021, it was announced that Amazon had acquired the exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football beginning in the 2023 season under the NFL's new broadcasting deals, marking the first time that the NFL had sold one of its main television packages to

4785-541: The package. ESPN reported that Fox would be paying around $ 60 million per game—an increase over the estimated $ 45 million per game paid by CBS and NBC under the previous contract, totaling an estimated $ 660 million per season. The Fox deal was terminated a season early in 2021. Amazon renewed its digital rights for the 2018 and 2019 seasons; in contrast to 2017 in which the games required an Amazon Prime subscription, for 2018 and 2019, Amazon also carries game coverage for free on its live streaming platform Twitch . Alongside

4872-581: The participating teams' markets. CBS affiliates were given right of first refusal to air the local simulcast before it is offered to another station (as had occurred in Cincinnati , Ohio where the market's NBC affiliate WLWT aired a game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns instead of CBS affiliate WKRC-TV ). A Saturday doubleheader was also added on Week 16: NFL Network aired

4959-544: The potential for advertising retail products and " Cyber Monday " promotions. The strategy is comparable to Prime Video's acquisition of Premier League soccer fixtures in early-December in the United Kingdom, which similarly leverages holiday shopping activity. On March 28, 2023, following an underwhelming slate of games for the 2022 season that led to a 46% drop in viewership, significant changes were made in response to Amazon's demands for more compelling games. Starting in

5046-406: The same arrangement for a second season. In 2016 and 2017 , the NFL continued with a similar arrangement, but adding NBC as a second rightsholder alongside CBS, with each network airing five games on broadcast television each. In 2018 , the rights shifted to Fox , through the 2022 season. In 2016, the NFL also began to sub-license digital streaming rights to the broadcast television portion of

5133-417: The season. In the following season , all references to Saturday Night Football were dropped, and any games that are not played on Thursday (such as in 2016 , two Christmas weekend games and an NFL International Series game) have since been branded as "special editions" of Thursday Night Football , and later Thursday Night Special or NFL Network Special . As part of new media contracts taking effect in

5220-622: The second week of September and the second week of December, to protect high school and college football. Since most high school and college seasons have ended by mid-December, other than bowl games , there has been little desire to close this loophole, even though the regular season has expanded well beyond mid-December since the law's passage. In 2005 , when the NFL negotiated a new set of television contracts, Comcast -owned OLN offered to pay $ 450 million for an eight-year contract to carry NFL prime time games. In exchange, Comcast planned to add NFL Network to its digital cable lineup. The channel

5307-619: The show's 18th season. In 2008, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP Theatre Awards In 2019, he received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater. Wheeler was born in St Louis, Missouri. He attended Howard University , where he met his future wife, actress Hattie Winston . With Bernard Purdie Thursday Night Football Thursday Night Football (often abbreviated as TNF )

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5394-471: The simulcast of the games on NFL Network. The first game produced by NBC Sports was broadcast exclusively on NFL Network on November 3, 2016, while the first game simulcast nationally on NBC aired on November 17. A cappella group Pentatonix recorded a reworked version of their song "Sing" ("Weekend Go") to serve as the opening theme song for NBC's TNF telecasts; NBC also commissioned new instrumental theme music by Jimmy Greco, "Can't Hold Us Down", which

5481-400: The special on December 19, 2015. The rebroadcast was seen by 1.6 million viewers. NBC released a DVD of the special on December 22, 2015, through Universal Studios Home Entertainment . The DVD includes a behind-the-scenes special, The Making of The Wiz Live! As part of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Shows Must Go On , the full show was made available on YouTube for a limited time, to support

5568-471: The success of the package under CBS, the NFL was planning to negotiate a long-term contract for TNF , with CBS, Fox, NBC, and Turner Sports showing interest. The New York Post reported that this deal would also include the sale of a stake in NFL Network itself. On December 16, 2015, it was reported that the NFL was shopping the TNF package as a one-year deal with an option for a second year, similarly to

5655-459: The team and suspended from the NFL earlier in the week following the discovery of footage showing the player physically assaulting his wife, Janay, who was engaged to Rice at the time the security camera footage was recorded), changes were made to pre-game coverage on the first game in order to accommodate additional interviews and discussion related to the incident. Among these changes were the removal of an introductory segment featuring Rihanna (who

5742-519: The telecasts were originally part of NFL Network 's Run to the Playoffs package, which consisted of eight total games broadcast on Thursday and Saturday nights (five on Thursdays, and three on Saturdays, originally branded as Saturday Night Football ) during the latter portion of the season. Since 2012, the TNF package has begun during the second week of the NFL season; the NFL Kickoff Game and

5829-533: The telecasts. Features from the previous simulcasts of TNF on Amazon platforms will return, including X-Ray, and broadcasts on Twitch. Amazon also plans alternate broadcasts for Prime Video and Twitch, such as one that features the sports comedy team Dude Perfect . It was reported that Amazon was seeking advertising rates 20% higher than those of Thursday games in past seasons. Per a corporate policy prohibiting advertising that "encourage, glamorize or depict excessive consumption of alcohol" on its platforms, Amazon

5916-584: The visiting Denver Broncos a 19–10 Thanksgiving defeat. Each of the game broadcasts were titled either Thursday Night Football or Saturday Night Football , depending on the night on which it aired. This format carried over to the 2007 season . At its launch, the package proved highly controversial mainly due to the relative unavailability of NFL Network at the time; the league used the games as leverage to encourage television providers to carry NFL Network on their basic service tiers, rather than in premium, sports-oriented packages that required subscribers to pay

6003-406: Was added, but NFL Network decided to air the games itself, foregoing a rights fee. The other television deals generated $ 3.735 billion per year over an eight-year period for CBS , Fox , NBC , ESPN and DirecTV (owner of the out-of-market sports package NFL Sunday Ticket ). As previously mentioned, Thursday Night Football debuted on November 23, 2006 , with the Kansas City Chiefs handing

6090-435: Was announced that Tirico would replace Michaels full-time for NBC's Thursday Night Football games. For 2017, Kurt Warner would similarly fill in for Collinsworth on two non-Thursday games. For 2017, CBS hired Tony Romo as its lead color commentator. Numerous complications needed to be resolved, namely Romo's reluctance to cover both Sunday and Thursday nights as required under the Thursday Night Football contract, and

6177-458: Was cast via an open audition on June 6, 2015. On August 5, it was announced on Today that Shanice Williams of New Jersey would fill the role in The Wiz Live! . Williams had co-starred in local productions of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and West Side Story among others, and in 2014, was nominated for a Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Award for best leading actress. The special

6264-474: Was directed by Kenny Leon and adapted for television by Harvey Fierstein from the original musical's book by William F. Brown . Fatima Robinson was the program's choreographer, with Harvey Mason, Jr. and Stephen Oremus serving as the musical directors. Songs from the original Broadway production were featured, with two exceptions: " You Can't Win ", a song cut from the musical and first used in its 1978 feature film adaptation as sung by Michael Jackson ,

6351-424: Was notably higher in markets with a large African-American population, such as Atlanta , Baltimore , Norfolk , Richmond , and Washington, D.C. Nielsen also reported that the special produced the most social network interactions of any live television event in the past four years; there were three times as many Twitter postings related to The Wiz Live! than there were related to Peter Pan Live! . NBC rebroadcast

6438-507: Was one of two conductors (the others being fellow composers John Williams and Paul Shaffer ) during the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics . Wheeler was the musical director on the ABC Network show, Dancing with the Stars for the show's first 17 seasons. In January 2014, it was announced that former American Idol bandleader Ray Chew would take over as musical director for

6525-717: Was originally postponed to the Sunday after Thanksgiving in the afternoon, then postponed a second time to the following Tuesday night, then postponed again to the following Wednesday in the afternoon. The postponements forced the Steelers' Week 13 game against the Washington Football Team to be moved from Sunday, December 6, to Monday, December 7, and as mentioned, the Cowboys-Ravens game a day later, with both games remaining on NFL Network, Fox, and Prime Video. In March 2021, Amazon acquired exclusive rights to TNF as part of

6612-517: Was originally proposed. Additionally, only games between teams that have not played two Thursday games are eligible to be flexed and the same team can’t be flexed both times. The initial NFL Network team consisted of HBO Sports ' Bryant Gumbel as play-by-play announcer, NBC Sports' Cris Collinsworth as the color commentator for the Thursday telecasts, and Dick Vermeil replacing Collinsworth for Saturday telecasts. In 2007, Collinsworth replaced Vermeil alongside Gumbel for all games. Gumbel left

6699-713: Was performed by members of the orchestra from the Broadway musical Hamilton . Both were retained for NBC's games in 2017. On April 4, 2017, it was announced that Amazon.com had acquired non-exclusive streaming rights to the ten broadcast television games for the 2017 season over their Amazon Prime Video service, under a deal valued at $ 50 million, a five-fold increase over the $ 10 million paid by Twitter. The streams were exclusive to paid Prime subscribers. The deal includes $ 30 million worth of promotion. Amazon planned several special features for its inaugural game, including broadcasting alternate feeds with Spanish , Portuguese , and

6786-473: Was produced by Drive Studio, inspired by Times Square to reflect its New York City-based studio programming; unlike CBS and NBC, Fox utilized the same in-game presentation it uses for all other NFL games broadcast by the network. For 2019, Fox announced that it would produce all of its games in 1080p upscaled to 4K, with hybrid log–gamma (HLG) high-dynamic-range color , beginning with its season premiere September 26, 2019. The telecasts were distributed via

6873-427: Was reported by multiple sources that Fox had won the package. The next day, the NFL officially announced that Fox had acquired the broadcast television rights to the TNF package under a five-year deal lasting from 2018 through 2022 (which is aligned with the conclusion of the NFL's other television deals). Fox would air eleven games per season in simulcast with NFL Network, and Fox Sports would produce all games within

6960-440: Was reported that the NFL was considering splitting the TNF package across multiple broadcasters in tandem with the possibility of expanding the overall package to 17 games. It was also reported that ESPN and Turner Sports were not interested in the package due to its short-term nature, and that Fox was attempting to outbid CBS. On February 1, 2016, the NFL announced that TNF would be shared between CBS, NBC, and NFL Network for

7047-407: Was reported that the NFL was planning to sub-license a package of up to eight Thursday Night Football games to another broadcaster for the 2014 season . The NFL had negotiated with its existing broadcast partners, along with Turner Sports. These eight games were to be simulcast by NFL Network, and reports indicated that ESPN planned to place the games on ABC in the event it won the rights, bringing

7134-426: Was revealed that Twitter had acquired non-exclusive worldwide digital streaming rights to the ten broadcast television TNF games. The collaboration will also include streaming content on Twitter's Periscope service, such as behind the scenes access. This also gave NBC a rare distinction of holding two primetime NFL packages, with them already holding Sunday Night games . Rogers Media , who owns television rights to

7221-542: Was similarly assaulted by fellow performer Chris Brown in 2009) performing her song " Run This Town ". Following complaints by Rihanna on Twitter regarding the removal, the song was pulled entirely from future broadcasts. The rights were negotiated under a one-year contract valued at $ 275 million; on January 18, 2015, the NFL announced that it would renew the arrangement with CBS for the 2015 season, with its value increasing to around $ 300 million. In November 2015, The Hollywood Reporter reported that in response to

7308-524: Was simulcast nationally on both CBS and NBC , in addition to NFL Network and the local stations that the game was sold to, following concerns from politicians and other critics. Starting in 2008 , NFL Network eliminated all but one of the Saturday night games and started their Thursday night package three weeks earlier. This was done to accommodate the earlier schedule and the league's antitrust exemption that prohibits Saturday games from being held for most of

7395-520: Was the first NFL broadcast to intentionally use the Skycam as its primary camera angle, as opposed to the usual sideline camera that has been used since telecasts of NFL games began in 1939. NBC Sports had previously switched to a skycam-only presentation for portions of two Sunday night games earlier that season because of fog and smoke (and, sixteen years prior, during its coverage of the XFL ); positive reaction to

7482-856: Was used in place of the Scarecrow's key number "I Was Born on the Day Before Yesterday", and "We Got It", a new song composed by Harvey Mason Jr., Stephen Oremus with stars Ne-Yo and Elijah Kelley, was performed as Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion began their journey to find and kill the Wicked Witch of the West. The Wiz Live! was the first live TV program in US history to contain audio description for blind or visually impaired viewers. The cost of

7569-463: Was used, certain players on each team wore microphones, and 4K cameras were used to allow zoom-in shots during instant replays . With the move of selected games to CBS, media executives expected more major match-ups to appear on Thursday Night Football than in previous years in order to attract better viewership; in the past, Thursday Night Football had been criticized for often featuring games between lesser and poorer-performing teams. CBS and

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