SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
AEW Dynamite last night drew 928,000 live and same-night-DVR viewers, up from last week’s 828,000 but a bit below the Jan. 15 viewership of 947,000. NXT was also up with 770,000, from 712,000, but right in line with the 769,000 from two weeks ago.
AEW led NXT by 158,000 viewers. That’s above the last 116,000 and 102,000 the last two weeks, but below the 240,00 and 226,000 the prior two weeks.
In key demo comparisons, AEW continues to hold large leads over NXT. Among men 18-49, AEW holds a 0.50 to 0.30 lead over NXT. Among men 18-34, the lead is a little smaller, 0.29 to .0.18, indicating AEW is doing better among 35-49 year olds compared to NXT than the younger half of that demo, which could be a combination of AEW taping into the WCW Nitro vibe and also featuring some older wrestlers on to compared to NXT. Among all adults 18-49, AEW outdrew NXT by a 0.36 to 0.22 margin. The cable rating itself, measuring percentage of total available homes watching each show, was closer with 0.64 for AEW and 0.61 for NXT.
AEW finished no. 11 in the 18-49 cable rankings, behind some NBA games and Fox News programs. NXT finished at no. 34.
AEW also topped a million viewers in the “plus three day” delayed viewing totals with last week’s show, jumping to 1,082,000 viewers, the first million-plus number in that live-plus-three-day category since Dec. 4.
“AEW also topped a billion viewers in the “plus three day” delayed viewing totals with last week’s show…”
Talk about burying the lede!
I guess Vince’s plan is backfiring. By putting NXT on USA the network is losing subscribers. Of course that is what happens when the show takes place in a high school gymnasium.
I never understood the move, to be honest. NXT is a good show, don’t get me wrong. Lots of talent on it. As someone who prefers AEW, there’s nothing the WWE can do to get me to switch viewership on a Wednesday night. I’d imagine a lot of the AEW audience is the same. Bigger picture though for WWE, was pulling paying customers from your network, and eating those losses, worth the television dollars? I don’t know the figures, so maybe it was? I think the disenfranchised wrestling fan is smart enough to know by now that basically anything WWE gives us is just a ploy to attempt to sucker us in though before a return to Vince’s vision of sports entertainment, and the status quo.