By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite television show produced 913,000 viewers for TNT, according to Showbuzzdaily.com. The viewership count was up from the 878,000 viewership total from last week’s show.
Powell’s POV: Dynamite delivered a 0.35 rating and finished third in the 18-49 demographic in the cable ratings (behind two NBA games), which is up from last week’s 0.33 in the same demo. Monday’s WWE Raw finished with a 0.40 rating in the key demo. It was a solid bounce back week for Dynamite, though I’m sure AEW and TNT are hoping to see the viewership count climb back over the one million mark.
” though I’m sure AEW and TNT are hoping to see the viewership count climb back over the one million mark.”
To repeat myself – Dynamite no longer runs in prime-time on the west coast of the US. It starts at 5PM, which pretty much guarantees a poor west coast live viewing audience. TNT decided to give hockey the prime-time slot on the west coast (probably obligated contractually.)
Warner are certainly aware that Dynamites ratings are hurt by this decision.
I’m well aware, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’d still like to see it top one million. Hell, I’m sure they’d like to see it top two or three or four million! Kidding aside, I do believe the one million mark is attainable even with the switch. It’s actually been a while since they’ve done a theme show. Perhaps a theme show with a loaded lineup would do the trick.
Ratings were dropping before the change, and the ratings are still calculated exactly the same way with live + same day DVR counted. If AEW fans on the west coast can’t figure out how to DVR the show and watch it when they get home, that’s on them.
Can somebody please explain to me why we’re still listing the imaginary “key” demo? The shows are on completely different nights with different competition and the only thing 18 to 49 ever could have seriously been used for is a tie breaker. Not even sure why Tony latched on to that as “key” in the first place when a simple Google search will tell you the 50+ crowd have way more expendable income. Can’t wait to get there. I’d rather have money than be given artificial importance by a wrestling company because they can’t win any other demo.
Agreed. It’s important, but not nearly as important as it’s being made out to be by some people. To put it in perspective, Yellowstone’s season 4 premier did enormous numbers (8.383 million viewers on Paramount and 11.2 million on other channels plus replays the first night).
In a 9 paragraph story by Deadline.com, the site that first reported the ratings, there are 2 paragraphs that deal with the “key demo.” One points out that they did a 3.26 in the demo. The other points out that they had more viewers in both the 18-49 and 25-54 than any other show has done all year, both on cable and broadcast TV (yes, that includes the major OTA networks).
Even so, the focus of the article was almost exclusively on the total viewership since that’s the one (8.383 million) that broke the all-time record for season premiers on cable TV. The demo stuff was just supporting information.
If the demo is anywhere near as important as it’s pretended to be, why are there programs for other age groups? Shouldn’t everything be targeted to the only demo that matters? These things confuse me.
Advertisers care about both overall viewership and the key demos. It’s really that simple. If you don’t care about the demos, then don’t care about the demos, but they absolutely matter to advertisers, which is what makes them so important.
Advertisers care about demos for their product, I’ll give you that. Hasbro isn’t going to pay more for AEW because they have 18 year olds watching though. Advertising should be completely meaningless to any fan. Why do you care what ads are playing?
That question works for both categories. Why do people care what the overall viewership count is? People do care and some of it is that the focus has been on that overall number for a long time, but I think both are relevant.
It’s feels like one of the blind spots of the television industry. The shows that typically are near the top of the 18-49 also win the other demos. The record breaking drama shows – like Yellowstone, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos – are clearly made to be the best they can be and viewers in the demo are a byproduct more than the actual target audience.
I would go so far as to venture that the reason why the CW network is so far behind the other broadcast channels is because it’s so shamelessly targeted to that demo, and even more so to the 18-34 group. Even there, CW does better with 25-54 than they do with 18-49.
Just off of this Wednesday, Dynamite did a .35 in the demo while Tucker Carlson did a .32 but also did almost 4x the total viewership despite Fox News clearly being aimed at the older audience. If I was TNT/TBS or Tony Khan, I would be more concerned about Dynamite rarely breaking the top 20 overall viewership and having almost nobody over 50 watching.