AEW Dynamite secures third consecutive ratings victory against NXT
PHILADELPHIA (Heartland Newsfeed) — Fueled by a WWE Smackdown that lost nearly a million viewers during its WWE Draft broadcast and a rained-out ALCS matchup between the New York Yankees and Houston Astros, AEW Dynamite secured its third consecutive ratings victory over WWE’s NXT brand in the Wednesday night wars despite viewership declines two weeks in a row.
According to Forbes’ Alfred Konuwa, Dynamite outdrew NXT with a little over 1 million viewers — 4,000 fewer viewers from last week’s Dynamite broadcast. However, combined with a TruTV simulcast, that actual live number is something more to the line of 1.14 million, according to Dave Meltzer from Wrestling Observer.
NXT finished with its fourth consecutive week in decline, receiving 712,000 viewers overall — three consecutive weeks under one million viewers.
There were some positives for AEW for the night, as Dynamite finished fifth overall on cable and second in their time slot behind VH1 programming among the 18-49 overall demographic. Among 18-49 males, Dynamite finished second overall on cable and first in their time slot. Dynamite also won among teenage boys in the time slot, despite a late Golden State Warriors game that started at 9:40 p.m. Central time.
While Dynamite doubled NXT among the demographic — and despite no ALCS play — AEW ratings dropped from 0.46 to 0.44 while NXT dropped from 0.22 to 0.2.
TNT finished behind five networks including VH1, Fox News, MSNBC, Home & Garden and CNN, while USA finished behind those networks, as well as MTV, ESPN, Food Network, Discovery, NBC Sports and Bravo while head-to-head in first-run programming and total viewership.
Next week
NXT: WWE NXT has not moved production elsewhere and will still remain live from Full Sail University; Orlando, FL. No current details of the show are currently available.
AEW: The fourth live broadcast of AEW Dynamite will be live from the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh, PA (being promoted by AEW as “Brittsburgh”, as women’s division wrestler and professional dentist Dr. Britt Baker, D.D.S. is from the area). The show was previously labeled as sold out, but there are some last-minute tickets being made available, according to the venue’s box office.
The following are what’s confirmed for AEW Dynamite in “Brittsburgh” (in no particular order):
Jake Leonard, a broadcast media and journalism veteran, is the editor-in-chief of Heartland Newsfeed. Leonard is also GM and program director of Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network, wrestling editor and contributing writer for Ambush Sports, a contributing writer for My Sports Vote and Midwest Sports Network, and a former contributor to Bleacher Report and Overtime Heroics. He resides at home in Nokomis, Ill. with his dog Buster.
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