AEW finishes fifth on cable outside its regular slot, demo stays even

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/12/24/aew-finishes-fifth-on-cable-outside-its-regular-slot-demo-stays-even/

Outside of its regular timeslot on TNT, AEW Dynamite still finished fifth among cable programming following the NBA.

Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite finished with 775,000 viewers with a 0.32 rating in the 18-49 demographic. Viewership was down 4 percent while the demo rating was equal to last week’s figure.

The show followed TNT’s coverage of the Milwaukee Bucks vs. Boston Celtics, which was #1 on cable with 2,003,000 viewers and 0.80 in the 18-49 demo.

AEW experienced a surge with men 12-34 increasing from a 0.11 last week to a 0.27 rating. Adults 18-34 rose 53 percent

NXT ran unopposed from 8-10 pm eastern regarding wrestling competition but did go against the NBA game, college football on ESPN, and MTV’s The Challenge.

The show averaged 698,000 viewers and a 0.19 in the 18-49 demo. They fell 9 percent in viewers but were also equal in the key demo from the previous week. They finished 40th among cable programs for the night.

NXT saw a 29.5 percent increase with the 18-34 demo while the notable drop was seen with men 12-34.

Here is a breakdown of this week’s numbers:

Source: Showbuzz Daily

ADULTS 18-49
AEW: 0.32 (Even)
NXT: 0.19 (Even)

FEMALES 18-49
AEW: 0.20 (-9 percent)
NXT: 0.15 (+7 percent)

MALES 18-49
AEW: 0.44 (+2 percent)
NXT: 0.23 (-8 percent)

ADULTS 18-34
AEW: 0.23 (+53 percent)
NXT: 0.09 (+29.5 percent)

FEMALES 12-34
AEW: 0.12 (Even)
NXT: 0.09 (+50 percent)

MALES 12-34
AEW: 0.27 (+145.5 percent)
NXT: 0.08 (-38 percent)

ADULTS 25-54
AEW: 0.36 (-5 percent)
NXT: 0.22 (-4 percent)

ADULTS 50+
AEW: 0.36 (-5 percent)
NXT: 0.22 (-4 percent)

The best thing about Dynamite airing late was the lapsed wrestling fans of NBA Twitter finding out that Chris Jericho is “old and fat”.

1 Like

Turned my brother on to AEW, (he’s a lifelong wrestling fan, 36 y/o). He was legit confused at the amount of old timer wrestlers still around, compared it to WCW. Was even more shocked when he heard Tony Schivones voice… laughed, stated, “this is considered competition to WWE?” Made him watch the young bucks match… quickly lost interest and tuned into the local news. Couldn’t blame him. AEW stans need to admit when a show isn’t good.

1 Like

Unfortunately that’s what regular social media is like. Making dumb jokes for likes and retweets. It’s ruthless out there.

Seeing AEW fans mentioning ratings as a way to respond to NBA fans clowning AEW is sad. No one outside of the wrestling bubble obsessively cares about the rating the show they’re watching gets. Wrestling fans are brainwashed.

And not too overreact to one small sample, but this is a group of lapsed fans from 20-ish years ago, and their immediate takeaways were that Jericho is old, washed up and in a “second-rate WWE” promotion.

And that’s one of the main demographics that the wrestling business thinks it’s going to bring back. Work to do.

3 Likes

NXT has such little buzz, such a drop off from a year ago

In the previous thread where I said I think there is a big disconnect between the casual wrestling fan and internet wrestling fan, this is a perfect example.

Within the hardcore wrestling community AEW is all the rage, to the casual fan thats just not the case and these are the types of comments I tend to hear. It’s unfortunate, AEW does a lot of things right and I think they deserve more credit then they get from casuals, but its very hard for a new company to break through to the mainstream. This is why I give them credit for trying things like the Shaq angle and bringing in Sting, as much as some hardcodes may hate it, to break through they have to do things like that.

2 Likes

Is that adults +50 a mistake or did AEW actually beat NXT this week?