AEW Dynamite returns to regular night, tops 900,000 viewers

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/09/03/aew-dynamite-returns-to-regular-night-tops-900000-viewers/

AEW Dynamite returned it to its regular timeslot on Wednesday topping 900,000 viewers and finishing eight for the night about cable programs.

The go-home episode for All Out averaged 928,000 viewers, which was AEW’s largest audience since March 18th along with a 0.36 rating in the 18-49 rating. The demo rating tied four other episodes this year for the second-highest of 2020.

There was no first-run episode of NXT airing on Wednesday, although Syfy aired a replay of Tuesday’s episode with the replay averaging 183,000 viewers and a 0.04 demo rating.

The big competition was the NBA playoff game between the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks that did 2,742,000 viewers and finished second on the night. The late-game was the top program but didn’t start until 9:37 pm Eastern against the final 23 minutes of Dynamite. The late game between Oklahoma City and Houston did 4,106,000 and a 1.73 demo number.

AEW did very well with males 18-49 hitting as 0.51, their highest mark with that demo since January 15th while adults over 50 hit their highest number since March 18th.

The last Wednesday airing of Dynamite was on August 12th and compared to that week, males 12-34 jumped by 65 percent, adults over 50 increased by 35 percent, and males 18-49 improved by 34 percent. All of that has to be taken with a grain of salt by having the night to themselves with a new NXT episode.

The audience was that hit hardest was women 12-34 which did a 0.10 and were down 33 percent from the last Wednesday airing and down 28.5 percent from last Thursday’s number. NXT’s Super Tuesday special narrowly edged out AEW this week in that demo with a 0.11.

For our breakdown of the demo we compared this week’s figures to last Thursday’s unopposed airing of Dynamite and their last Wednesday night show on August 12th:

Source: Showbuzz Daily

ADULTS 18-49
This week: 0.36
Thursday, Aug. 27: 0.29
Wednesday, Aug. 12: 0.32

FEMALES 18-49
This week: 0.21
Thursday, Aug. 27: 0.19
Wednesday, Aug. 12: 0.26

MALES 18-49
This week: 0.51
Thursday, Aug. 27: 0.39
Wednesday, Aug. 12: 0.38

ADULTS 18-34
This week: 0.23
Thursday, Aug. 27: 0.19
Wednesday, Aug. 12: 0.18

FEMALES 12-34
This week: 0.10
Thursday, Aug. 27: 0.14
Wednesday, Aug. 12: 0.15

MALES 12-34
This week: 0.28
Thursday, Aug. 27: 0.25
Wednesday, Aug. 12: 0.17

ADULTS 25-54
This week: 0.43
Thursday, Aug. 27: 0.33
Wednesday, Aug. 12: 0.39

ADULTS 50+
This week: 0.35
Thursday, Aug. 27: 0.30
Wednesday, Aug. 12: 0.26

NXT has more viewers, AEW has more viewers. I think they are better off not being in opposition.

2 Likes

True. AEW shouldn’t have chosen to put the show on the same day that NXT is on (and has been on even before AEW existed).

AEW didn’t choose the day, TNT did.

Also, there is a difference between a streaming premiere on a niche OTT service and a national cable broadcast. Don’t be so dense to argue otherwise.

NXT was always on a Wednesday. Don’t be so dense as to assume it wasn’t a thing. I hear so many AEW hardcores assume NXT chose Wednesday just because of AEW. Ignorant. And I don’t get why you’re getting so emotional over this. Calm down.

“Don’t get all emotional about this”. = Got it.
Your go to line whenever anybody responds to you about any of your posts relating to AEW on this board.

I know 8 months out from Dynamite’s launch AEW was aiming for Tuesday nights (as workers who were signed were being told that was the night).

NBA on TNT forced that plan to change.

I also would love to hear you disagree with the idea that somehow, if AEW did end up on Tuesday nights, NXT wouldn’t have ended up right up against it. I can see your reasoning now…“Well, USA had Smackdown on Tuesday first, so they’re just replacing their own show!”.

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TNT always has basketball on Thursdays through the season and Tuesdays in the Winter/Spring…so there wasn’t an existing plan to really change once we knew it was Turner other than Meltzer making a mistake in his original story about it (before correcting). Anything that happened before the network deal is irrelevant because you can’t intend on a day when a tangible show doesn’t exist - kind of chicken and egg with that. If you don’t have a “where” it’s going to air to answer to a follow up question about a specific day, you have nothing. That said, once you have a network, it wasn’t going to be on Mondays because of Raw. Wasn’t going to be on Fridays because of Smackdown. Wasn’t going to be exclusively on weekends. So what choice did AEW/TNT have? It’s silly to blame a new company when they can only make a suggestion.

Also kind of think it’s irrelevant to question NXT’s date either. Doesn’t matter where they came from - vacating a day you’ve held traditionally for a half decade at that point for another messes up the routine for wrestling fans who watch live (still the majority) and frankly would have looked like they were running. We know from moving Raw around for the Dog Show in past years that it wasn’t a sure thing that viewers would follow in full to a new night, so it’s not like asking them to start over was necessarily reasonable at the beginning.

Would it help one of them to move? I think that’s obvious in any scenario with any live events of any kind competing with each other. But both companies have different motivations for being there. Ratings aren’t always the be all and end all to everyone. At least until a network makes a different decision. Would seem like the next time that might be up for grabs will have more to do with when contracts are up than what happened the last week or two.

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That’s my go to response because there are 2 or 3 posters on here that get wound up when responding to any slight anti-AEW comment. And I’m going to stick to that response and not get sucked into an exchange of insults with people who just want to be tribal.

It’s ok HHH, NXT and the DX tank will probably be moving to Tuesday soon.

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I don’t get why this point is even argued. Sure NXT was on Wed nights first, but of course the move to USA was a direct counter to AEW airing Wednesday’s on TNT. I don’t think Vince himself would deny this, that’s always been Vinces strategy when it came to competition. Nothing wrong with it, personally I love it, the competition on Wednesday’s has made wrestling exciting again.

Sometimes I think the fans take this type of thing more personally then then the actual wrestlers/management/ownership etc.
And for the record, I mean both sides.

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You make the most childish and dumbest of contributions.

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