The Thanksgiving Eve episode of AEW Dynamite saw its annual decline due to the holiday while the show finished sixth among cable originals.
The November 24th edition of the show finished with an average of 898,000 viewers and 408,000 (0.31) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
The overall audience drop of 9 percent was much less than the 16.5 percent week-to-week drop in 2020 and 25 percent loss for the 2019 episode on Thanksgiving Eve.
In 2019, the Thanksgiving Eve episode averaged 663,000 and 0.26 in the 18-48 demo. In 2020, they averaged 710,000 and 0.26, so they performed much stronger this year on what is typically a tough night for their audience. The 18-49 drop in 2019 was 33 percent and a decline of 30 percent for the 2020 episode.
Dynamite fell 15 percent in the 18-49 demo from the week prior with its 35-49 audience being hit by a 22.5 percent decline with males in that category down by 20 percent and women falling 28.5 percent.
The bright spot was the 18-34 audience that grew 5 percent from the week prior. Females 12-34 were up by 38 percent this week going from 0.13 to 0.18.
The NBA occupied the top two spots on the cable charts with Philadelphia vs. Golden State finishing first for the late game on ESPN with 2,100,000 viewers and 0.68 in 18-49. AEW Dynamite went against the Brooklyn Nets vs. Boston Celtics that finished second with 1,492,000 viewers and 0.45. Dynamite also finished behind MTV’s Challenge that averaged 708,000 viewers and 0.40 in the demo.
Most of the networks were airing reruns except CBS that won the night with Survivor at 8 p.m. ET with 0.99 in 18-49 and 5,544,000 viewers.
Dynamite took place from the sold-out Wintrust Arena in their top market of Chicago featuring an eight-man tag main event, CM Punk wrestling QT Marshall in Punk’s hometown, and Bryan Danielson vs. Colt Cabana as the key attractions.
In Canada, where the holiday was not a factor, Dynamite averaged 133,000 viewers and 86,000 in the 25-54 demographic on TSN 5 (as opposed to its regular TSN 2 placement). The show was up from 130,600 and 71,500 in 25-54 the week prior.
Raw was the most-watched wrestling program of the week in Canada with 184,200 viewers but Dynamite topped both Raw and SmackDown in the 25-54 demo. The November 26th edition of SmackDown on Sportsnet 260 averaged 144,000 and 72,500 in 25-54.
