Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/12/30/final-aew-dynamite-of-the-tnt-era-finishes-4-behind-college-football/
The final AEW Dynamite episode of the TNT era finished fourth on cable for the evening trailing college football.
The December 29th edition from Daily’s Place averaged 975,000 viewers and approximately 485,000 (0.37) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
The 18-49 audience was nearly identical to last week’s number while the overall audience dropped by 4.4 percent after last week’s figure eclipsed one million viewers for the first time since October.
The show performed very well with its female audience as the 18-49 demo grew 31.5 percent this week among women while females 12-34 saw a jump of 33 percent in the demo rating.
Males 18-49 dropped by 9.5 percent while adults 18-34 saw a minor drop of 3 percent from last week.
The show featured a Trios main event with Kyle O’Reilly making his AEW in-ring debut teaming with Adam Cole & Bobby Fish against Orange Cassidy, Trent Beretta & Chuck Taylor. Other highlights included CM Punk’s first appearance at Daily’s Place, the return of Jim Ross, and the semi-finals of the TBS tournament between Jade Cargill and Thunder Rosa.
The show was fourth on cable behind three college football games. Dynamite went against the ending of Clemson vs. Iowa State that finished #2 with 4,902,000 viewers and 1.13 in 18-49 and went against the start of the top game between Oregon and Oklahoma that averaged 4,735,000 and 1.14 respectively.
Over five episodes in December, Dynamite averaged 935,000 viewers and 439,000 in 18-49. The overall audience decline was affected by adults 50+ falling 16 percent in the demo rating this week from 0.43 to 0.36.
Next week, Dynamite moves to TBS with a loaded show from the Prudential Center in Newark including the rematch between Hangman Page and Bryan Danielson for the AEW World Championship.
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In Canadian viewership news, WWE Raw averaged 164,700 viewers and 65,000 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360 going against several games of the recently canceled World Juniors hockey tournament and Monday Night Football. Raw was down from last week’s figures of 216,500 and 99,400 in 25-54.
NXT on Tuesday night averaged approximately 54,000 viewers on Sportsnet 360.