AEW Dynamite Ratings Report (6/19): Record low viewership and demo rating for Wednesday prime time slot, comparison to past years and NXT

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AEW Dynamite on Wednesday (6/19) drew an alarmingly low total average viewership of 502,000. That’s sharply down from 681,000 last week, which was one of the lower viewership numbers in series history already. Since the start of 2002, the lowest viewership number was 609,000. The average so far this year through 24 weeks was 672,000 coming into this week.

One year ago this week, Dynamite drew 902,000 viewers. Two years ago this week, it drew 878,000 viewers.

In the key 18-49 demo, it drew a 0.16 rating, down from 0.23 last week. The average through 25 weeks this year is 0.26.

One year ago this week it drew a 0.33 rating. Two years ago this week it drew a 0.32 rating.

The average the first 25 weeks of 2023 was 0.30. Two years ago, the average through 25 weeks was 0.37.

These numbers are so out of the norm, they are likely a fluke outlier and there will be rebound next week. The lead-in this week was “Black Panther” rather than “Big Bang Theory” and it was Juneteenth, so perhaps those changes affected viewership. That being said, the numbers lately have already been lower than usual.

NXT, by comparison, averaged 724,000 viewers the night before on USA. NXT drew a 0.26 rating, well above the 0.16 rating Dynamite drew the next night.

AEW advertised these matches and segments for Wednesday’s show:

Claudio Castagnoli vs. Pac (with Bryan Danielson on commentary) – Owen Hart Foundation Men’s Tournament Quarterfinal
Kris Statlander vs. Nyla Rose – Owen Hart Foundation Women’s Tournament Quarterfinal
Mark Briscoe & Kyle O’Reilly & Orange Cassidy & Dante Martin vs. Kyle Fletcher & Roderick Strong & Konosuke Takeshita vs. Zack Sabre Jr. – All Star 8-Man Tag Match
MJF vs. Rush
Young Bucks vs The Acclaimed – AEW World Tag Team Championship Eliminator Match
“Timeless” Toni Storm vs. Mina Shirakawa contract signing
Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay go face to face

Here’s a look at this week’s percentage of people 18-49 with TBS who watched to the last two years (referred to as the Coverage Rating):

June 19, 2024: 0.40 (the prior two weeks ratings were 0.69 and 0.56, which were more typical weeks for Dynamite)
June 21, 2023: 0.74
June 22, 2022: 0.61

Ratings can be confusing even to people in the TV and pro wrestling industries with so many categories that are tracked in different ways. The “Coverage Rating” takes into account the drop in cable subscribers and reflects the percentage of people with access to TBS who chose to watch, and this week’s number is down sharply from the prior two years. But again, this week was an outlier overall and looking at the past two weeks, the percent watching is more similar among those with access to TBS year over year.

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