Airing against Game 1 of the NBA conference finals led to AEW Dynamite dropping to one of its lowest 18-49 audiences ever.
The May 21 episode from Albuquerque, New Mexico, attracted an audience of 575,000 viewers and 201,000 viewers (0.15) in the core demo.
The audience dropped 16% while the 18-49 audience fell by 12% from last week’s Beach Break episode. It was Dynamite’s second-lowest audience of the year and its third-lowest 18-49 audience in its normal time slot, ever.
The only episodes to draw a lower audience in the key demo were on March 5 and April 23 of this year.
Despite the low audience in that category, Dynamite still ranked sixth among prime-time cable programs, and outside of the NBA & NHL, it was only topped by Jesse Watters Primetime on Fox News.
In the 18-49 demo, Dynamite fell 23% among males in the category. However, females were not affected and grew by 3% over last week’s average.
The strongest factor was Game 1 of the NBA conference final between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks, which went into overtime and averaged 5,726,000 viewers and a 1.89 rating in the 18-49 demographic on TNT. The simulcast on truTV had 824,000 viewers and 0.29 in the demo.
Dynamite also ran against Game 1 of the Edmonton Oilers vs. Dallas Stars, which had 1,460,000 viewers and 0.45 in the demo on ESPN.
The AEW program included an eight-minute overrun featuring a brawl among the participants in the Anarchy in the Arena match this Sunday at the Double or Nothing pay-per-view.
The viewership figures did not include data from the Max streaming service, where Dynamite is simulcast.
Data: Programming Insider & Wrestlenomics
