After a week of buzz surrounding the arrival of Sting, an inter-promotional angle, and the advertisement of Shaquille O’Neal – AEW posted one of its strongest numbers to date.
On the heel of the “Winter is Coming” special, AEW shot several key angles in front of the inflated audience that resulted in an increase this week. Dynamite finished #2 among all cable programs with a 0.45 in the 18-49 demographic and averaged 995,000 viewers.
The demo figure ties their third-best rating since Dynamite launched in October 2019 while total viewers were their fourth-highest of all-time, excluding the September 9th episode this year that ran unopposed from NXT.
Coming off TakeOver: War Games, NXT averaged 659,000 viewers and a 0.17 in the 18-49 demographic, finishing 37th among its cable opposition. Their viewership was nearly identical to last week’s figure while the demo rating increased by 6.25 percent.
AEW grew among women 18-49 by 21 percent this week, followed by women 12-34 increasing by 16 percent, and the 50+ demo was up by 11.5 percent. The latter demo still belonged to NXT, which scored a 0.35 rating.
NXT didn’t suffer any significant declines, including a major rebound in its 18-34 audience. Last week, they hit a terrible 0.04 rating in that demo but were up to a 0.09 this week. The show increased by 55 percent with men 12-34 and increased by 25 percent with women 12-34.
AEW scored its highest 18-34 rating since August 5th with a 0.29.
The last two weeks have made it crystal clear that the story is not about AEW vs. NXT but rather, AEW catching fire and becoming more competitive with RAW. This week RAW and AEW tied among women 12-34 while RAW narrowly edged out AEW with women 18-49 by 0.01.
When you consider what the ceiling for AEW would have been over the past two weeks without the NXT competition, it illustrates the role NXT is playing by capping that ceiling on Dynamite.
The next question is whether AEW can sustain this level of viewership? The company is gearing up for several themed episodes of Dynamite over the holiday season and won’t be taking any weeks off.
The top cable program on Wednesday was MTV’s The Challenge: Double Agents, which scored a 0.51 in the 18-49. The series features Lio Rush as one of the contestants airing head-to-head with AEW and NXT.
Below is a breakdown of the key demos and for this week, we will include the figures from this past Monday’s edition of RAW:
ADULTS 18-49
AEW: 0.45 (+7 percent)
NXT: 0.17 (+6.25 percent)
RAW: 0.51
FEMALES 18-49
AEW: 0.34 (+21 percent)
NXT: 0.12 (-8 percent)
RAW: 0.35
MALES 18-49
AEW: 0.57 (+2 percent)
NXT: 0.22 (+16 percent)
RAW: 0.67
ADULTS 18-34
AEW: 0.29 (+11.5 percent)
NXT: 0.09 (+125 percent)
RAW: 0.31
FEMALES 12-34
AEW: 0.22 (+16 percent)
NXT: 0.05 (+25 percent)
RAW: 0.22
MALES 12-34
AEW: 0.25 (Even)
NXT: 0.14 (+55 percent)
RAW: 0.36
ADULTS 25-54
AEW: 0.49 (+4 percent)
NXT: 0.19 (-5 percent)
RAW: 0.64
ADULTS 50+
AEW: 0.29 (+11.5 percent)
NXT: 0.35 (Even)
WWE RAW: 0.84
