A loaded AEW Dynamite scores big increases in key demo ratings, tops 1 million viewers for first TBS episode

Last night’s episode of AEW Dynamite on TBS (1/5) averaged 1,010,000 million viewers. That is up from last week’s 975,000 viewers for the final episode of TNT. Last night’s episode featured an AEW World Title match, a TBS Women’s Title Tournament final, and an AEW World Tag Team Title match, along with appearances by Chris Jericho, C.M. Punk, Britt Baker, and MJF. It was a loaded show, in other words.

It’s the second episode to top 1 million viewers since a stretch of 1 million-plus viewership levels from Aug. 25 to Oct. 6 last year. Dynamite also drew over 1 million two weeks ago. Dynamite averaged 896,000 viewers per episode in Q4 last year, but that included two weeks out of their usual timeslot. Excluding that, the show averaged 940,000 viewers.

The move to TBS includes a shift back to airing in prime time on the West Coast, a change last quarter that likely cost Dynamite viewers each week.

Any fear that viewers somehow would be confused or think Dynamite was preempted was alleviated by this debut number. That said, under other circumstances, a show this loaded would have been seen as a chance to be among highest viewership numbers of the year, and Dynamite topped 1.1 million eight times in the last six months of 2021. So this was a good number, but given the strength of the line-up, not a grand slam viewership number. That might be due to the channel change.

In the key 18-49 demographic, it drew an 0.43 rating, up from last week’s 0.37. That’s the first time they’ve topped 0.40 since Oct. 27. That’s a number TBS and AEW officials are likely to be very pleased with.

The male 18-49 demo was up to 0.55 from 0.50 the week before and tied with two weeks ago.

The male 18-34 demo was up to 0.36, a bit jump from 0.23 last week. That’s the highest demo rating since Sept. 22.