Some more clarity has been made regarding the methodology recently incorporated by Nielsen, increasing wrestling viewership.
Last week, Variety reported that Nielsen had informed clients that it would be incorporating results from a study conducted bythe Advertising Research Foundation (ARF). The third party conducts its DASH (Devices and Accounts Study of Hybrid viewing) survey and is accredited by the Media Rating Council to survey U.S. households and their connectivity for television and digital streaming.
According to two people familiar with the matter, and could result in a one-time expansion of the number of households, or “universe,” watching cable and broadcast TV, and a potential diminution of the overall audience watching streaming.
The first wave of results proved effective for professional wrestling programming with large increases in viewership. The January 28 edition of Dynamite increased by 31% in overall viewership, Impact drew its largest audience on AMC, SmackDown’s audience grew by 34%, and Collision hits it highest mark since December 2024.
Andy Nemmity of WrestleJoy has further details on what has changed, and it focuses on the DASH survey, providing a better understanding of how many homes have cable access and providing a more reliable number for the cable universe.
Nemmity states that the number of people watching the shows isn’t higher, but the number of homes has increased, and therefore, the percentage watching a program encompasses a larger number.
Here is what DASH is and what it is not. DASH provides the denominator: how many cable homes exist, how they connect, what the overall TV landscape looks like. Nielsen still uses its own proprietary algorithms for everything else. It determines whether a TV is on or off, estimates who in a household is watching, and calculates demographics. DASH does not replace any of that. It replaces the number those algorithms multiply against.
The reason this matters for the industry is that everyone can now point to the same independent source. Nielsen, networks, advertisers, and competing measurement companies like VideoAmp and Comscore can all reference the same DASH data when they argue about how big the TV universe is. Before this, everyone was using their own estimates, and those estimates disagreed.
DASH also found that the old system was undercounting certain types of households. The people hardest to reach in surveys (younger, more likely to be Hispanic or African American, more likely to be renters) were underrepresented. DASH used an aggressive follow-up process, including FedEx mailings and in-person door knocking to find these households, which improved the response rate by a factor of 5.8 compared to the initial survey alone. Including these households makes the universe estimate more representative of who actually lives in America and how they access television.
Nemmity finds that increases can be seen beyond professional wrestling, but that it’s largely older audiences that are now being accounted for.
The other area is the 18-49 demographic, which is typically the most valuable audience that advertisers covet.
While last week’s episode of SmackDown and Collision saw significant growth in the key demographic, Dynamite did not, and the year-to-year comparison throughout January shows a major drop from 0.18 to 0.08, with both years including accessibility on HBO Max. It’s also worth noting that the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has reported that WBD has shifted to focusing on the 25-54 demographic as the core demo for its advertisers.
DASH will update its data twice per year, with spring and fall survey results accounted for, and therefore, adjust the number against which the audiences are measured.
The results of the survey focus on cable television, and NXT would not appear to be impacted by these changes, as CW is a broadcast network. Although the January 27 & February 3 episodes were the most-watched of the year and the highest since November 2025.
