AEW tops NXT in demo, TakeOver provides best figures since October

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Originally published at AEW tops NXT in demo, TakeOver provides best figures since October

The final Wednesday head-to-head battle saw AEW finish ahead in the 18-49 demographic while NXT managed its best number since Halloween Havoc.

AEW Dynamite featured the return of Mike Tyson to the program leading to an average of 688,000 viewers and a 0.28 in the 18-49 demographic finishing fifth for the night on cable. Their viewership was similar to last week with a small drop of 2 percent while the key demographic improved by 7.7 percent.

NXT aired the first night of TakeOver: Stand & Deliver, which was simulcast on Peacock and would hinder their television viewership with the commercial-free alternative. They still managed their best figure since October 28th with Stand & Deliver averaging 768,000 viewers and 0.22 in the 18-49 demographic. Their viewership increased by 17.4 percent and the demo rose 5 percent from last week. The show featured a five-minute overrun for the main event between Io Shirai and Raquel Gonzalez.

NXT beat AEW slightly among females 18-49 and by a sizable margin with adults over the age of 50.

The major difference appeared to be older viewers. AEW decreased by 17 percent with adults over 50, while NXT increased by 19 percent in that demographic leading to NXT averaging more viewers overall.

Besides 50+, AEW was not hurt among any of its demos going against TakeOver as the other seven categories monitored by Showbuzz Daily saw increases or remained flat with last week’s episode. Males 12-34 grew by 36 percent this week on Dynamite and its 18-34 demo improved by 25 percent.

NXT was up 19 percent with women 18-49 and its 50+ audience but the 18-34 demo took a big hit falling by 23 percent to a 0.10.

In Canada, TakeOver was simulcast on both Sportsnet 360 and the WWE Network while AEW Dynamite aired exclusively on TSN 2. Neither show cracked the top ten sports broadcasts on Wednesday finishing below 103,500 viewers.

Next week sees NXT move to Tuesday nights permanently with AEW retaining Wednesday nights unopposed by wrestling competition.

ONE Championship’s card that aired on TNT right after Dynamite averaged 196,000 viewers and a 0.08 in the 18-49 demographic finishing 88th for the day on cable. They will continue in the same timeslot for the next three weeks following AEW Dynamite.

Here is a breakdown of the final Wednesday head-to-head figures:

Source: Showbuzz Daily

ADULTS 18-49
AEW: 0.28 (+7.7 percent)
NXT: 0.22 (+5 percent)

FEMALES 18-49
AEW: 0.18 (+20 percent)
NXT: 0.19 (+19 percnet)

MALES 18-49
AEW: 0.38 (Even)
NXT: 0.24 (-4 percent)

ADULTS 18-34
AEW: 0.15 (+25 percent)
NXT: 0.10 (-23 percent)

FEMALES 12-34
AEW: 0.11 (+22 percent)
NXT: 0.07 (Even)

MALES 12-34
AEW: 0.15 (+36 percent)
NXT: 0.14 (+8 percent)

ADULTS 25-54
AEW: 0.33 (+6.5 percent)
NXT: 0.26 (+18 percent)

ADULTS 50+
AEW: 0.24 (-17 percent)
NXT: 0.38 (+19 percent)

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Are there only around 1.5 million people (according to Nielsen) that care about wrestling on Wednesday? Unfortunate that the combined viewership hasn’t really grown with the efforts of two shows.

And like I said last week, AEW should be relieved that NXT are moving. The whole “they’re a new promotion” factor seems to have worn off.

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Are the people watching takeover on the new censored streaming peacock included in this number?

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Nope. The numbers don’t include peacock viewers.

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Or Hulu viewers, or really actual viewers it is an estimate based on people with Nielsen cable boxes.

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688k. So either the return of a convicted rapist wasn’t a draw or more people are losing interest. Explains why they are hot-shotting the war games match. Desperately needing viewers.

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The bigger story to me is NXT putting on a PPV and not even beating AEW in the demo. NXT has been the better show for the past month but even with all that momentum they couldn’t win the demo.

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I mean to be fair to NXT they simulcast commercial free on peacock which if you got for the network why would you not watch on there instead of USA.

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Derp derp…AEW cAn’T oUtDrAw WrEsTlEmAnIa…oUtLaW MuDsHoW TwInKlEtOeS derp derp

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Pushing 18-49 as a PR story has been a great move by AEW (especially when it seemed like this might be a closer battle), but fans actually caring about the generic idea of a key demo being a stronger money benchmark in the same measuring stick realm as viewership always feels like bragging about your baseball team making more money than another in a given year.

If we find out there’s some massive difference between the AEW and NXT extensions, I’ll re-evaluate that thought, but until then I’m not finding that much more important than a side note to the thing we’ve universally cared about from the start of wrestling wars. Congrats to AEW for it’s viewership wins after all this. It’s a massive accomplishment for a new company, even if it’s vs. a 3rd brand, that doesn’t diminish it much. They’re healthy and successful and it’s cool to see.

Now it’s time to see if everyone’s big predictions of a rise in viewership running alone comes true. I’m hesitant to believe either show is seeing a massive hike, but based on the hype, you almost have to believe AEW has to safely get over a million next week for all the talk that has gone into this.

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I don’t think we are going to see big rises in viewership or AEW safely getting over a million next week (lol). AEW have made gains in all demographics but 50+ YOY but they’ve been rather tiny - less than 10%. Obviously previous performance isn’t an indicator of future performance blah blah blah, but even when Dynamite ran unopposed previously they didn’t gain suddenly 0.1 in the demo or 300k viewers.

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Oh, I agree with the reality that they most likely won’t. Especially since they’re running through a rough patch right now. But the better part of the last 12 months was filled with people making it a fait accompli that they would be over a million without competition and this is our first chance to see if it happens or not. Also on the horizon is the NHL Playoffs in a month and the NBA Play-Ins a week after that. I think that’s why Blood and Guts is being placed where it is. They might have 4 weeks to get to that magic number before the next opportunity existing being mid-Summer. But I’m excited to see where reality and expectations get aligned for the first time without any artificial barriers.

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The demo isn’t a new thing at all, it’s all sports leagues care about and is a big thing in sports media and TV deals. It’s also literally how they rank every show on TV so it’s not a new thing at all.

I expect both shows to get an increase, especially NXT. It’s really up to the older viewers for AEW to increase because they already do really good numbers in the demo

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I have to imagine WWE see’s this as a huge success considering this was also streaming on Peacock. With that said we’re also talking the WrestleMania week addition of what’s essentially a takeover, so its to be expected.

I’m very curious to see how AEW does next week without wrestling competition. Hopefully they hit a big number because the better they do, the better it is for the business overall.

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Demo isn’t new for the entertainment industry and that’s the types of sites we get the numbers from for convenience, but that isn’t the headline getter when you talk about Live stuff like say an NHL ratings story Stanley Cup Final ratings finish low on NBC - Sports Media Watch or Grammys Grammy Award ratings drop 51 percent to record low. And that’s what wrestling falls into at this point. That’s all I’m saying that by purely aligning it equally when it’s rarely the headline in most stories makes it friendly talk for AEW more than it being meaningful when the advantage that part gives them is far less straightforward in the scheme of things. As a dumb example, it’s like telling me at the end of the day that a team had more hits in a baseball series than the team that beat them 3-straight. Yeah, probably a good sign of the future if your offense is more efficient, but when I’m looking at the standings, only one thing matters.

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I think some people do not get ratings here at all. It doesn’t matter if there are 100 people watching or 10 million. It is all about the ads during the shows. If those 100 people were the 100 richest people in the world and you could run adds of really expensive things and out of these 100 people 80 buy all the stuff, TV stations will pay alot of money to have that programme on their stations because the ad revenue will be great. If you have 10 Million 50+ people watch your programme your ad revenue would still suck since these people do not buy as much. I am always amused by the people here who think they know more about which numbers matter than the TV stations who make all the money.

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A lot of this is true…here is an article (it’s about 2-3 years old) that takes about it. I do believe some of it is a bit antiquated, but it is reality.

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Of course, we’ve led with the demo headline because…well because there’s definitely no bias in the way most of the wrestling media covers this stuff. Definitely not

Also - other than people who actively do not like NXT, who in their right mind watched Dynamite instead of Takeover on Wednesday. Absolute lunacy

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raises hand

I proudly came home from work Thursday morning and put on the show that I enjoy more, AEW Dynamite. I always have to show the great Tony Khan my support. I respect how he built a show that gets the losers and clowns so riled up.

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Slightly off topic: I have to say one thing after I’ve been watching only TakeOvers and such for some time now and not the weekly product - the WWE announcing drives me INSANE. Those two shows all three commentators were shouting during each and every match, there is not a single calm moment, a joke, something to release the steam. They deliver everything so intense (especially Beth, but the other two are just slightly toned down), that it becomes burdensome. At both shows, somewhere around the middle of them, I was EXHAUSTED from someone constantly SHOUTING IN MY EAR.

With AEW I can actually chill and have a laugh at/with the commentary for the most part, so I will definitely go (first) with this product any day of the week, instead with something that exhaust me so much.

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