Amazon Prime Video’s first Black Friday NFL game drew an average of 9.61 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

Using the custom live streaming reports that Nielsen compiles for Amazon including data from Amazon’s servers, the game averaged 10.83 million viewers.

The Friday-afternoon game was the highest rated show on TV among young viewers 18-34 and adults 18-49.

The game was a blowout, with the Miami Dolphins trouncing the New York Jets, but for Amazon, commerce was a big deal.

During the game, Amazon ran ads that were targeted, interactive and shoppable, with many featuring QR codes that could take viewers to special Black Friday deals.

“Prime Video’s first Black Friday Football game welcomed meaningful successes across Amazon’s many touchpoints with fans and customers,” Jay Marine, VP and global head of sports for Amazon, said. “We’re beyond proud of this new tentpole event we’ve created with the NFL, and how so many parts of Amazon worked to create a fun and innovative production that surrounded football, family, shopping, food and music. We look forward to building this Black Friday game into one of America’s great annual sports traditions.”  

Amazon will be encouraging holiday shopping during Prime Video’s NFL telecast on Black Friday (November 24). 

While Prime Video streams the New York Jets taking on the Miami Dolphins on the day after Thanksgiving, Amazon said it will be offering special opportunities to shop with special deals and limited quantity product drops from brands including TCL, Dyson, Lego and Nintendo. 

“Be sure to keep an eye out for exciting deals appearing on the screen as you watch, with new deals available each quarter during the game, as well as before kickoff and after the game ends,” Amazon said in a blog post.

Being able to sell products through Amazon is a key ingredient for many of the advertisers on the Thursday Night Football telecasts.

Viewers won’t need to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to watch the game. Anyone with an Amazon account will be able to stream the Black Friday Game. 

Amazon said that the Black Friday game will feature the Thursday Night Football announcing crew, including play-by-play announcer Al Michaels, analyst Kirk Herbstreit and reporter Kaylee Hartung.

Prime Video will present an extended pregame show featuring hosted by Charissa Thompson with Tony Gonzalez, Richard Sherman, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Whitworth.

Chef David Chang will be on hand to check in on tailgating at the stadium, provide tips on what to do with leftovers and to create a culinary surprise for the player of the game.

After the game, Garth Brooks will headline Amazon Music Live from his new bar in Nashville. The performance will also be available on Amazon’s Twitch streaming service.

The New York Jets, with new quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and the Miami Dolphins will play in the first Black Friday NFL football game, which will stream on Amazon Prime Video.

The game — played the day after Thanksgiving, a big day for holiday shopping — will be streamed free to all viewers and kick off at 3 p.m. ET from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

“We’re excited to be the home of the first-ever NFL Black Friday game, and what better way to kick off this new tradition than with a rivalry matchup between the Dolphins and the Jets,” Marie Donoghue, VP of global sports video at Amazon, said. “On one of the biggest shopping days of the year, we’re thrilled to offer another way to delight Amazon customers, and give all fans free access to this AFC East showdown.”

Prime Video will be starting its second season as the exclusive national carrier of Thursday Night Football.

The full Thursday Night Football schedule is expected to be released Thursday.

Amazon said its Black Friday coverage will feature its Thursday Night Football on-air team, including Emmy winners Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit, and reporter Kaylee Hartung. Charissa Thompson will serve as host for pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage, with Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez, All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman, former NFL quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick and Super Bowl champion Andrew Whitworth as analysts, along with features reporter Taylor Rooks. 

Next TV appreciates Black Friday for its brutal, black-hearted honesty — it’s not trying to sell itself as a holiday themed around tradition, family, giving, good food, compassion and spirituality. 

It is what it is — all id, consumerism and late-stage capitalism. 

And this year, we're in. Not all in. But in enough to find five great deals on streaming gadgets and services, befitting the busy, modern media consumer. 

How about a little more digital storage for all those streaming apps? How about a little more processing power for all that 4K you've been streaming? How about a little break on that monthly subscriptions bill, that now exceeds what you were shelling out for pay TV in the first place?

Just close your eyes. Give them your credit card number. The expiration date. The three-digit code on the back of the card. And your address. They'll ship it out to you nice in an oversized cardboard box, full of packing materials that will be around long after you're gone. Hopefully, your big shopping prize doesn't get swiped at your front door before you can claim it. 

Happy Black Friday! 

Apple TV 4K (2nd Generation, 2021 Edition, 32GB Model) - $80

In May 2021, Apple released the first major refresh in four years for its pricey Apple TV 4K device, capturing rave reviews from tech pubs. 

The second-generation Apple TV 4K included a Siri remote lauded for its elegance and ease-of-use, a powerful A12 Bionic semiconductor and digital storage allotments (32 gigabyte and 64GB models) that are four times more spacious than the average streaming device. 

The problem with the Cadillac of Streaming Gadgets has always been the price, with the MSRP for the base 32GB model coming in at $180. 

Apple reduced that hurdle quite a bit in October, with the introduction of the third-generation Apple TV 4K -- priced at $129, it delivers 50% faster processing speed than the Gen-2 model, using 30% less electrical power, via an A15 Bionic chip. It supports HDR10+, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital 7.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound,  and it includes the more popular USB-C charging interface. Notably, the base model includes 64GB of storage. 

Still, the second-gen 32GB Apple TV 4K device remains more robust than 99% of the streaming devices on the market today. 

And it's available on Amazon and Walmart.com for under $80 this Black Friday. 

Roku Ultra 2022 - $70

Back in May, Roku started bundling its high-end Ultra streaming box with its rechargeable Roku Voice Remote Pro for $99.99. 

Introduced as a standalone accessory two years, Next TV has enjoyed the Voice Remote Pro simply because of the USB-C charging capability. Previously, the device would get stuck in the couch cushions, or our untrainable, lazy but sweet lab/pitbull Bohdi would lie on top of it. The buttons would get inadvertently activated. And we'd have to keep replacing AAA batteries. 

As for Roku's latest Ultra device, it's equipped with a quad-core processor, 4GB of SSD storage (spacious by Roku standards), Dolby Vision, 4K, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos support, as well as the most primo Wi-Fi reception tech you can get from Roku. 

This Black Friday, you can find this bundle on Amazon for $70 with free Prime shipping, a 30% savings. 

Samsung 85-Inch  Class 4K Crystal UHD Smart TV - $997

When it comes to Black Friday, let's just say the ol' North America-based B2B division of Future PLC, home of Next TV, merely dabbles in the business. It's our sister pubs in the U.K., including Tom's Guide, that have the real search authority here, laying out dozens of great purchase options for, just for the smart TV category alone.

Visiting Tom's Guide this morning, one item caught our eye — the Samsung 85-inch Class 4K Crystal UHD smart TV, powered by the Tizen TVOS,  available on Walmart.com today for $998. 

Samsung is a prestige manufacturer — even its lower-priced sets have outstanding picture quality. And you'll be hard-pressed to find a better deal on such a large 4K display. 

Hulu (Basic with Ads) - $1.99 a Month for a Year

Just departed Disney CEO Bob Chapek has certainly taken his lumps this week, but we here at Next TV have had fine respect for his overall streaming strategy, unsustainably high as it might have ultimately been for shareholders and the Disney board. 

This included the difficult-to-get-right tonal differentiation between Hulu and Disney Plus. This year in particular, we've enjoyed a steady diet of adult-targeted, limited-series biographical dramas on Hulu — Dopesick, Under the Banner of Heaven, Pam & Tommy, Pistol, The Dropout, Mike.

The acting in dark miniseries including The Old Man and The Patient was best-in-class, as were the comedic performances in the second season of Only Murders in the Building. (And we haven't yet watched The Handmaid's Tale, which says nothing good about us.)

We also tuned into Legacy: The True Story of the L.A. Lakers just to see how many times Jeanie Buss started sentences with, "My dad always..." 

Suffice it to say, we've gotten just about as much value out of our Hulu subscription as we have those more expensive Netflix or HBO Max monthly bills. 

For Black Friday, Hulu is offering its $7.99 base service, for $1.99 a month for 12 months. You have to watch some advertising. And it doesn't look like the deal carries into the Disney Bundle. 

But this is a heck of a price for a streaming service that always seems to have the goods. Hopefully, Bob Iger does nothing to change that. 

HBO Max (with Ads) - $1.99 a Month for Three Months

As Next TV feels the bite of global inflation and bad career choices, we're finding fewer and fewer reasons to pay $14.99 a month for HBO Max in the David Zaslav era. 

Zaslav has told us what he's ditching from the HBO Max for tax write-offs and arms dealership are shows we won't miss. But we do seem to notice that endless well of new series hits that debuted all throughout 2021 — Hacks, Mare of Easttown, The White Lotus — has suddenly run a little dry. (Although, we're currently enjoying season 2 of The White Lotus.)

Sure, we could try to economize with the advertising-subsidized $9.99 HBO Max tier ... and risk the wrath of the commercial-loathing Mrs. Next TV,  and her brutal, profanity fueled tirades that often wake the neighbors and might even provide Susie Essman with character notes. (What can we say? We married strong.)

But with HBO Max offering its ad tier at $1.99 a month for three months? Shoooot. We might have to consider living in the doghouse for a while.

We are collectively over, for better or worse, lamenting the commercialization of the holiday season. We now gleefully lean into it with the post-Thanksgiving purchasing orgy known as Black Friday ... a multi-day celebration of what's left of the global supply chain that leads into another mass marketing concept, "Cyber Monday." 

And subscription streaming is in on the action. Here are five deals we found:

Hulu Basic for 99 Cents a Month

Hulu's most popular and affordable tier just got dirt-cheap for 12 months, with Hulu offering its basic, ad-supported plan to new and eligible returning customers for 99 cents a month for one year. 

Given the regular $6.99-a-month regular price, that's a savings of $72 a year. 

The offer expires on Nov. 30. Returning Hulu customers must have quit the service more than a month prior to be eligible. 

Sling TV Free for One Month

Sling TV is offering new subscribers a free month of service when they commit to a first month. The offer, however, ends Monday. 

If you don't act fast enough, no biggie--Sling TV is still offering both its Blue and Orange tiers, each regularly priced at $35 a month, for only $10 the first month. 

The combined tier (regularly $50 a month) is priced at $20 a month. 

Three Free Months of Apple TV Plus Without Buying an Apple Gadget?

It's not easy to find an Apple TV Plus user who actually pays the $4.99 rate for the service, given Apple's aggressive promotional strategy for its two-year-old SVOD service. 

And these days, you don't even need to buy an iPhone or Macbook Pro to get the exclusive home to Ted Lasso for free. As an enticement to signing up for a store purchasing account, Best Buy is offering three free months of Apple TV Plus, as well as six free months of Apple Music. 

Again, you must create a Best Buy account to get the promo. 

YouTube TV for $14.99 for the First Month

Google is offering a steep first-month discount for the most popular virtual pay TV service, YouTube TV, marking the regular $64.99-a-month price  down to just $14.99. 

YouTube TV offers more than 85 channels and features the most robust selection of live-sports options in the vMVPD realm.

Amazon Channels Free for the First Two Months

We might have saved the best for last with this one. 

Amazon is offering two months free of a bunch of SVOD services that it sells through its Amazon Prime Video Channels platform. Included in that mix is Paramount Plus, Discovery Plus, Showtime, Starz, AMC Plus and Britbox. 

The offer is only available to Amazon Prime Video members and ends Monday, Nov. 29. 

Hulu is deploying a Turkey Day deal to, er, goose its already hot signups. 

In what the Disney-controlled streaming company is actually billing as a Black Friday promotion, it’s offering new and returning customers its ad-supported base service for $1.99 a month for one year. 

The Hulu base tier is regularly priced at $5.99 a month, so that renders a savings of $48. 

The promotion starts on midnight (Pacific Time) Thanksgiving Day and runs through 11.59 PM PT “Cyber Monday" (Nov. 30). 

Earlier this month, Disney revealed that Hulu reached 36.6 million paid subscribers in the quarter ending Sept. 30, up year over year from 28.5 million. 

Roku is taking the price of going over the top below $20, pricing its limited-edition HD-only Roku SE streaming device at an industry-low $17 and selling it exclusively at Walmart on Black Friday. 

Introduced in 2019, the Roku SE is an entry-level streaming device similar in profile to the Roku Express HD, only bigger, and it comes in white instead of black. It lacks features like an Ethernet port, which is useful for those who want to avoid the pangs of spotty WiFi. 

Indeed, like popular Breaking Bad pizza delivery chain Venezia’s, which famously didn’t cut its pies, Roku passes the savings onto you. 

It should be noted that Roku’s competitors having been doing this ultra-low pricing limbo, too, with sticks and dongles: Amazon’s HD-only Fire TV Stick, for example, is currently priced at $13.99. And there are a bunch of OEM versions of Google’s Chromecast HDMI dongle priced at $20 and below at and on Walmart. 

But having Roku, currently the biggest hardware brand in streaming, go below 20 bucks is notable.

Roku is also giving pricing haircuts to other devices for Black Friday:

> The Roku Premiere, normally $39.99, will be on sale for $24.99 from Nov. 20-30 directly from Roku, or from Walmart, Best Buy and Amazon.

> The Roku Streaming Stick+, normally $49.99, will be priced at $29.99 directly from Roku, or from Best Buy and Amazon. 

> The high-end Roku Ultra, regularly $99.99, will be priced at $69.99, directly from Roku, or from Walmart, Best Buy or Amazon.

> And the recently introduced Roku Streambar will go for $99.99 after launching at $129.99, directly from Roku, or from Best Buy or Amazon. (Notably, the price to purchase a smart sound bar with Roku circuitry was $170 just a few months ago, before Roku introduced a cheaper second-generation smart soundbar model.)

Roku is also charging 99 cents for two months of Showtime and Starz premium channel subscriptions through the Roku Channel.

Also read: Roku ARPU Surges 20% in Q3 While Active Users Hit 46 Million

These are heady days for Roku, which saw its market capitalization zoom past $30 billion this week (it stands at over $32.5 billion as of midday trading Thursday). 

During a bullish third-quarter earnings call last week, Roku reported that “player” revenue, which is the money Roku makes from selling streaming boxes and sticks, and licensing its OS to smart TV makers, was up 62% to $132.4 million.

But just as it is for competitors Amazon and Google, Roku’s real objective is to proliferate its operating system, which as it also revealed, had 46 million active users worldwide as of the end of September.

As it moves to a number like, say, 100 million active users, Roku investors are pondering a near future in which the company has extensive control over distribution to streaming content, much the way Apple App Store and Google Play control the mobile app world. 

“If the platform provider can capture a large enough global scale of consumers who are essentially using it as a bundling agent—as an intermediary—then they’re going to have market power over the suppliers of the content, and they will emerge to use that market power to get a pricing or access differentiator, and they’ll build a business based on it. I think the reason you see so much market cap flowing to Roku right now is because they seem to have developed an independent separate public company platform that is becoming essentially a channel store of scale,” Liberty Global Chairman John Malone said at a Paley Center virtual event last week. 

One way to achieve that market is to undercut Amazon and Google at Walmart over Black Friday on streaming devices. 

Sling TV and Roku are getting an early jump on Black  Friday with deals and upcoming offers that arrive amid a forecast from the Consumer Technology Association that consumers will be buying tech-related toys and gizmos in record numbers starting next week.

Taking advantage of the fact that its service does not require an installation appointment, Sling TV said it’s offering gift cards at Walmart, Best Buy and GameStop stores around the country. Walmart stores will carry $25 Sling TV gift cards, while Best Buy and GameStop will offer them in increments up to $100. The cards, also offered at Sling.com and through  eGifter, can be redeemed online.

On the device side, Sling TV is offering Apple TV boxes for $89 (versus a retail price of $149) to customers who prepay for three months of service, and 50% off a Roku Premiere+ (usually $100) under the same prepay option. It’s also offering a free Roku Streaming Stick when subs pony up for three months of service.

Roku has some of its own deals on the way:

-Roku Streaming Stick at Best Buy and other major retailers starting Nov. 20 for $35.99 (down from $49.99).

-Price cut on the Roku Express+ exclusively at Walmart for $25 (down from $39.99) starting Nov. 24.

-The Roku 2 for $44.99 exclusively at Kohl’s starting Nov. 21.

-The Roku 3 for $49.99 exclusively at Best Buy starting Nov. 24.

The CTA said it expects a record 116 million Americans – or about 47% of the adult population, will purchase tech or tech accessories during Black Friday Week.

Its 2016 Pre-Black Friday Survey anticipated a 10% jump in the number of U.S. adults planning to buy tech products from the Monday before Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday (November 21-28, 2016).

“By all accounts, the 2016 Black Friday week looks like it will be a record breaker for tech,” said Shawn DuBravac, Ph.D., chief economist, CTA, in a statement.  “Even with delayed promotions from retailers and manufacturers, and signs of pre-election uncertainty, we expect consumer enthusiasm for technology purchases during the holidays to be higher than ever.”

CTA said the top 10 tech products shoppers plan to buy are:

1. Televisions 
2. Laptop computers 
3. Smartphones 
4. Videogame consoles
5. Tablet computers 
6. Headphones 
7. Tech accessories  
8. DVD or Blu-ray Disc players 
9. Digital cameras 
10. Wearables

Among other more specific categories, CTA expects 1.2 million drones to be sold in the U.S. during the Q4 holiday season, as well as 700,000 VR headsets, and 4.5 million 4K/Ultra HD TVs. 

Smartphones, TVs and tablets topped shopping lists as about 59.9 million Americans bought or planned to buy technology products over Thanksgiving shopping week, which includes the Monday before Thanksgiving through “Cyber Monday,” according to the Consumer Technology Association, the organization formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Association.

Online and mobile shoppers are expected to approach the number of in-store shoppers, the CTA said, citing the findings of a post-Black Friday survey. A combined 85% of consumers who shopped did so online or via mobile, compared to 94% who shopped at brick-and-mortar stores, the organization said.

CTA expects that Americans will spend $40 billion over the week, with consumers who shop spending an average of $319. That’s a 14% decrease over 2014, but higher than the numbers pulled in during 2013.

Overall, 27% of U.S. adults shopped on Black Friday, up from 24% in 2014, and 10% shopped on Thanksgiving, down from 14% last year.

Though final numbers are yet to be tallied, the CTA said the top 10 tech purchases during the week are expected to be:

1.    Smartphones
2.    Televisions
3.    Tablets
4.    Tech accessories
5.    Laptops
6.    Videogame consoles
7.    DVD/Blu-Ray Players
8.    Headphones
9.    Fitness activity trackers

10.  Digital media streaming devices

"For the first time, emerging tech products such as fitness activity trackers and digital streaming devices broke into the top ten most-purchased tech products over the holiday shopping week," said Shawn DuBravac, Ph.D., the CTA’s chief economist and senior director of research, in a statement. "The perennial Black Friday tech favorites such as smartphones and televisions dominated American's tech purchases again this year."

Roku has bulked up its integrated TV strategy, albeit temporarily for the holiday buying season, with integrations on two HD models from LG Electronics being sold at Best Buy – a 55-inch model that’s on sale for $549.99, and a 65-inch version that runs $999.

But this work between Roku and LG isn't part of a long-term deal, at least not yet. Those models are available via a “limited-time promotion with Best Buy,” according to CNET, which first reported on the new LG-Roku combos.

Still, the connection with LG broadens Roku’s overall integrated TV strategy.  Roku, which recently introduced a 4K-capable streaming player (the Roku 4) also has TV deals with Haier America, Sharp, TCL, Hisense and Insignia, which is Best Buy’s in-house brand.

LG, meanwhile, told CNET that the Roku partnership centers on “entry-level” series models and that its own webOS platform will continue to power its core smart TV lineup.

"As part of a limited-time promotion with Best Buy, LG is offering one entry-level series of TV with non-LG Smart TV technology this holiday season. While the Roku platform was chosen for this brief, cost-competitive promotion, LG's own webOS platform remains at the core of our extensive Smart TV lineup," the TV maker told CNET. 

Roku, meanwhile, expanded on its Black Friday deals. Starting tonight, it will offer discounts on the Roku Streaming Stick ($39.99); the Roku 3 ($79.99); and the recently announced Roku SE (special edition, $25). On the Roku TV end, it’s hawking a 32-inch TCL Roku TV for $125, and a 55-inch TCL model for $348. 

Consumers looking to snap up new Roku on Black Friday will have to shell out a little less green to get one.

Roku offered a sneak peek at its Black Friday specials, led by an “SE” (for special edition) model that will be available in limited supply and go for $25, a deep discount from a suggested retail price of $49.99.

Per tech blogger Dave Zatz, the SE is based on the hardware ID (2710SE), so “we can assume this is a rebadged Roku 1 (2710R). So it will feature significantly lesser processing power than the 2015 Roku 2 and Roku 3… but supports RCA connections for older, lower def televisions.”

Bottom line: “At $25, it’s not a bad deal at all,” he wrote.

The Roku SE model runs the new OS 7, supports 1080p streaming, access to nearly 3,000 channels/apps, and is compatible with HDMI and analog TVs. It also delivers some of the company’s new features, including optimizations for connectivity in hotel and dorm WiFi networks, Roku said. 

Roku’s other models – the Roku 4 ($129.99), Roku 3 ($99.99), Roku 2 ($69.99),  Roku 1 ($49.99) and Streaming Stick($49.99) – will apprently fetch their normal price on Black Friday.

Roku prepared the SE deal as TV-connected OTT devices are expected to be a big hit this holiday. Roku will be contending with new product entries such as Amazon’s 4K-enabled Fire TV, Google’s new Chromecast adapter, the new Apple TV and a growing group of products that run Android TV.

Comedy Central Records and South Park have joined to release a limited edition 7-inch vinyl picture disc for Nov. 28, Record Store Day Black Friday, the network announced today. 

The disc will feature songs “James Cameron” from the episode Raising the Bar and 'My Bitch Ain’t No Hobbit' from the episode The Hobbit.

Started in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners, Record Store Day was created to get word out for over 700 independently-owned record stores in the US, as well as similar stores internationally.

Some other recordings by Comedy Central Records include, Jim Gaffigan’s “Obsessed,” Patton Oswalt’s “Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time,” Bill Cosby’s “Far From Finished,” Hannibal Buress’ “Live From Chicago,” and Whitney Cummings’ “I Love You."