SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
AEW Dynamite scored it’s second straight comfortable victory over NXT on USA in the live plus same-night-DVR viewership numbers last night, as measured by the Nielsen Company that samples viewership in thousands of homes around the country to estimate total viewership. AEW drew 940,000 viewers (down from 947,000 last week) and NXT drew 700,000 (down from 721,000 last week). The lead grew to 240,000, up from 226,000 last week.
The AEW cable rating of 0.68 compared to the NXT cable rating of 0.55.
In the key demo rating of 18-49 ratings, AEW outdrew NXT by a 0.38 to 0.21 margin, better than last week’s 0.36 to 0.26 margin. Among the male 18-49 demo, AEW doubled NXT’s rating – 0.51 to 0.26. Among the young male demo, AEW nearly doubled NXT – 0.29 to 0.16 margin.
Besides the strong demo numbers for AEW relative to NXT, the big reason for AEW and TNT to celebrate is they finished in the top five of all cable shows on Wednesday night the key 18-49 demo, including beating the early NBA game they went head to head with on ESPN (Philadelphia 76ers vs. Brooklyn Nets). The NBA game rounded to a 0.3 demo rating, below AEW’s rounded number o.4. AEW also outdrew the NBA game in total viewers by a slim margin of 940,000 to 934,000. The second NBA game on ESPN finished no. 1 in the 18-49 demo rankings.
If not for Rachel Maddow’s big interview with Lev Parnas on MSNBC last night, AEW would have finished no. 4. The Maddow show drew one of its better viewership totals of 4.469 million, good for no. 2 in the demo rankings and no. 1 in total viewership by a wide margin among all cable shows.
Regarding last week’s viewership (1/8), after tallying three additional days of delayed viewers, AEW drew 1,170,000 (up from 947,000) while NXT drew 899,000 (up from 721,000). AEW added 223,000 viewers; NXT added 188,000 viewers.
Two weeks ago (1/1), taking into account a full seven additional days of delayed viewers, NXT ended up with 688,000 viewers, up from 548,000 live viewers. AEW ended up with 1,228,000 viewers, up from 967,000. That was the third-best +7 day viewership Dynamite has drawn, and the best since Oct. 16. The best viewership total was for its premiere episode on Oct. 2 that drew 1.741 in the 7+ day tally.
I know you want to spin it as great because you are desperate to pretend CodyEW is legit – but declining ratings are never a good thing.