By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite television show produced 945,000 viewers for TBS, according to Showbuzzdaily.com. The viewership count was down from the 966,000 viewership total from last week.
Powell’s POV: Dynamite finished first in the 18-49 demo in Wednesday’s cable ratings with a 0.40 rating, up from last week’s 0.35 in the same demo. Monday’s WWE Raw finished with a 0.45 rating on USA Network. I’m sure there are some folks wondering if AEW would have benefitted from teasing the surprise of Jeff Hardy’s debut. Personally, I think they’ve gone overboard with the surprise teases. While there are definitely times when it makes sense to tease a surprise or a big announcement, I also feel that having more unadvertised surprises can create the feeling that anything can happen, which makes each episode feel more must see rather than just the shows where they hype the surprises in advance.
Can’t wait to see Brandon Thurston’s graph of the quarter hours. This TERRIBLE episode had to have lost viewers every segment.
With the exception of you, who watches intently throughout the entire episode so that you can bitch about it like a four year old girl.
I watch Aew, their ppvs, but not their YouTube shows, and last nights episode was amateur hour. Felt very sloppy, crammed, and uneventful. Jeff’s debut was a letdown. Sorry. I’ll continue watching, however. It just feels like a nostalgia company at this point.
Quarter hours were mostly flat after a major drop following Q1. I guess the BBT audience didn’t tune out quickly enough. 921k average after Q1.
Q1: 1.113m
Q2: 927k
Q3: 915k
Q4: 886k (Dark Order promo through FTR/Tully promo)
Q5: 924k
Q6: 939k
Q7: 944k
Q8: 913k (491k in 18-49, lowest in the demo)
Just goes to show that hiring everybody in the universe is completely meaningless when the show is written by an absolute moron.
Jeff’s arrival doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Being that they are brothers does Matt somehow not know that Jeff is in the building? Why not just come out together? It feels so forced that Matt would suddenly just try to turn over a new leaf on a dime like that.
And yes Jeff’s run in was underwhelming and he looks out of wrestling shape; only good thing about it was Darby looking at him in awe like he was his childhood hero.