NXT on USA viewership hold steady despite building around an NXT Title match between Karrion Kross and Finn Balor, key metrics and historical perspectives

Last night’s episode of NXT on USA (5/25) drew a 0.56 Cable Household rating, as measured by Nielsen Media Research, essentially even with the 0.57 of the prior two weeks and down from the 0.59 the two weeks before that. The highest rating for NXT this year is 0.63. The lowest is 0.43.

Total viewership was down 2,000 from last week – 698,000, down from 700,000 – and 1,000 up from two weeks ago. In other words, NXT has been really even the last three weeks. The prior four weeks dating back to the start of their move to Tuesdays, they averaged 788,000. So they’re down around 90,000 the last three weeks compared to the first four weeks on Tuesdays. It seems they’ve settled into a base number of 700,000, give or take.

NXT is likely disappointed in last night’s rating and viewership due to building up the NXT Title match between champion Karrion Kross and challenger Finn Balor as the main event on last night’s show. If you can’t pop a rating for a Takeover-level NXT Title match, it deflates hope for of any short-term strategy to grab more viewers than usual. This could be seen as an indictment of Karrion Kross as a draw to the potential NXT audience or a sign of NXT having too many titles (three men’s singles titles, plus a women’s singles title and two tag championships) to the point of watering down their relative perceived value to the viewer.

One year ago, NXT drew 731,00o viewers in the early stage of the pandemic up against AEW on Wednesday night, so they’re down from that viewership level. They averaged 648,000 in May of last year, though, lower than the 714,000 average in May of this year.

In the core 18-49 demographic, NXT drew a 0.13 rating, down from 0.15 last week and 0.17, 0.18, 0.22, 0.23, and 0.22 the prior weeks since the move to Tuesday nights.

In the male 18-49 demographic, NXT drew a 0.16 rating, down from last week’s 0.19 and below the 0.22 the prior two weeks.

In the younger male 18-34 demo, NXT drew 0.09, up from 0.05 last week and in line with 0.09, 0.10, 0.12, 0.12, and 0.11 the prior weeks since the move to Tuesday nights.