AEW Dynamite drops to lowest figures since moving to TBS

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Originally published at AEW Dynamite drops to lowest figures since moving to TBS

Despite delivering on a heavily promoted match, AEW Dynamite fell to its lowest figures since the move to TBS.

Wednesday’s edition of the show from Chicago saw an average of 954,000 viewers and approximately 456,000 (0.35) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.

It represented a drop of 13 percent in overall viewers and a 14 percent decline in the 18-49 demo compared with last week’s numbers.

It was Dynamite’s lowest figures in those categories since moving to TBS last month and lowest overall since the ‘Winter is Coming’ special on December 15th.

The show was built around CM Punk and MJF having their first match together in Punk’s hometown of Chicago. The match went over 38 minutes and took up most of the second hour. The quarter-hour breakdown is not available yet to see how the match performed compared to the rest of the program.

The show still finished third among cable originals behind South Park and the early NBA game between Memphis and the Knicks, which went head-to-head with Dynamite. AEW did beat the late game on ESPN between Denver and Utah.

A World Cup qualifying game between the U.S. and Honduras finished fourth on cable with 843,000 viewers and 0.32 in 18-49 on FS 1.

The week-to-week loss was pronounced among its male audience with men 18-49 dropping by 18 percent, men 18-34 down by 20 percent, while males 35-54 fell by 17 percent this week.

Females 18-49 were only down by 3 percent while females 18-34 grew by 11 percent.

The 50+ demo rating dropped from 0.42 to 0.39.

In Canada, AEW Dynamite averaged approximately 128,000 viewers on TSN 2. It was a rare week where it did not finish among the top ten sports broadcasts for the day. The sports programming was led by the Fifa World Cup qualifying game with Canada vs. El Salvador along with two NHL games and Curling coverage among the top ten chart.

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This surprises me……I would not have expected Punk vs MJF in Chicago to drop like that. I didn’t watch to be honest, but that’s because I just haven’t been in to Punk during this run.

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Looking at the quarter hours, the Ruby/Nyla match was the low point - no shocker there - cold match with zero build.

I like Lambert but, with all the talent AEW has, there is no reason for him to have two talking segments.

The MJF/Punk match was incredible but I would have started the show off with that, especially so it’s not obvious the match is ending on the hour

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I was glad the match main evented, as it was the biggest match of the night, but now I worry they won’t do stuff like that anymore.

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I get that in theory, but there is always a part of me that hates it when long matches main event as it makes the finish so predictable, its similar to the way I feel about Iron man matches. It feels like there is no point watching until the final 5min.

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I blame South Park.

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I don’t really watch AEW anymore but I would assume punk versus MJF would have drawn a crowd. Didn’t even finish top ten in sports in Canada.

They probably need to reconsider some of the other stuff they put out there. Lambert every week with Brandi sounds cringe worthy and Ruby Soho kind of sucks

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Wheeler Yuta is also terrible. I don’t know what some people see in this guy. I can see people possibly not being interested in him as the replacement for Kendrick. He reminds me of a generic create a wrestler a video game. Very basic moves and look.

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Well there will be better days. It was still the best Wrestling show all week.

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Well, I mean you’re comparing it to Raw and NXT 2.0 lol. Not exactly high praise. (I’m just making a joke, not being combative).

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I very much disagree. He doesn’t have much character to him right now, but he’s a more-than-capable wrestler and one of a handful of prospects they have. The main draw of that match was Moxley anyway.

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