AEW and NXT stay steady against the World Series

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/24/aew-and-nxt-stay-steady-going-against-the-world-series/

The fourth week of head-to-head competition between AEW and NXT saw each show take a minimal hit from sports competition on Wednesday.

Going against game two of the World Series, AEW averaged 963,000 viewers and registered a 0.45 in the 18-49 demographic. Overall viewership was down 5% and the 18-49 demo was up from last week’s 0.44. This week’s 18-49 number placed AEW fourth for the night among cable programs behind the two NBA games and an episode of American Horror Story.

NXT averaged 698,000 viewers, which was a minor drop of 3% from last week’s figure. Among people 18-49 the show did a 0.21, which was also up from a 0.20 last week.

Within the key demographics, AEW was up noticeably among people 18-34, along with males and females 12-34. The show did take a hit in people 25-54 and 50+. They beat NXT in each key demo except for 50+ where NXT edged won the night with a 0.33 to a 0.25. AEW won big among males 18-49 with a 0.62 compared to NXT’s 0.23 in that demographic.

Both shows went against the World Series that averaged 11,925,000 with the Houston Astros against the Washington Nationals in the second game of the series.

There were also back-to-back NBA games on ESPN. The Boston Celtics vs. Philadelphia 76ers game went ran against the two wrestling shows and averaged 1,698,000 viewers.

If the Astros vs. Nationals goes to a seventh game, it would be played next Wednesday and go head-to-head with both programs.

The NBA is always going to run. RAW was up against a Pats game. I fear AEW drops off into Impact level. It’s down to one third RAWs audience.

This silly stuff with Orange Cassidy and Marco needs to stop. It might be over to the hardcore fans that watch live but it’s causing TV viewers to tune out of the silliness

A terrible Pats game whose viewership declined over the course of MNF.

I think it’s way too early to be “Chicken Little-ing” AEW or NXT’s numbers at this point. They were slightly down, but both ratings (AEW’s in particular) are still above where most predicted they’d be before they launched.

In terms of dropping to “Impact Level” (I assume you mean PopTV/Destination America-era Impact, as they were still doing good numbers when Spike dropped them), I highly doubt they’ll drop that low. Just in terms of reach, TNT have more available viewers than both of those networks combined. AEW’s ratings are comparable to (and in some cases better than) TNT’s original programming, so I’d have to imagine the network is happy (which is really the most important thing… Lol!). So I wouldn’t worry to much about a slight dip in the numbers.

Things will be fine. It’s an exciting time to be a wrasslin’ fan…Enjoy the ride, brother! :100:

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Yeah my worry is that it’s becoming too ECW like (ie towards cult following and not mainstream).

The Orange Cassidy stuff was off putting to me It seemed silly for the sake of being silly. Also the tag matches while athletic completely ignore tag rope and have silly stuff like partners jumping on top of partners etc. I guess it just looks a bit too Indy at times.

Then you have stuff like he Cody angle which was big time. I hope they turn away from the Indy silliness type stuff they do and make it seem more like NJPW would with a more North American flavour