By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite television show averaged 761,000 viewers for TBS, according to Showbuzzdaily.com. The viewership count was down from the 939,000 viewership total from last week.
Powell’s POV: Ouch on that viewership number. There was no NBA Final game last night. The first game of the NHL Stanley Cup Final delivered a 1.33 rating with 4.2 million viewers for ABC. Dynamite finished second in the 18-49 demo in Wednesday’s cable ratings with a 0.28 rating, down from last week’s 0.34 in the same demo. Monday’s WWE Raw finished with a 0.43 rating on USA Network while running opposite the NBA Finals. The June 18, 2021 edition of Dynamite on TNT delivered 552,000 viewers and a 0.20 rating in the 18-49 demographic (the episode aired on a Friday night due to TNT’s coverage of the NBA playoffs).
The top cable show last night only did a .29 which is why Dynamite finished second.
The long term problem for all of TV is that there is a slow but very noticeable decline in regular TV viewership. This is going to force changes in years to come.
Wrestling fans need to realize that “free” shows on major cable networks are not immune to the overall trend of TV.
And that means the fantasies of new super-high price contracts for the likes of AEW are probably not going to come to pass.
Actually, the slow decline of TV viewership is massively overstated. There are still more people watching TV today than during the Monday Night Wars and Attitude Era.
Shows like Yellowstone are setting all time highs on cable. The NFL had its most watched non Super Bowl in 40 years this past January. IndyCar and F1 racing are seeing huge surges in their viewership.
Wrestling viewership is declining because WWE took forever to ditch the indy darlings and get back to big dudes with big personalities and hot chicks, and AEW is just frenetic horseshit aimed at a small, and very limited audience.
As for last night, why would people see how bad last week’s show was and then stick around for mind numbing decisions like pitting Will Ospreay against fucking Pockets, or watch the Middle-Aged Cucks win yet another tag championship?
Or watch Wardlow turn into a hybrid of WCW pre-NWO Hulk-Hogan and Bill Goldberg in his prime. Hopefully they will dial that back some now.
Honestly I don’t know that either company knows the formula of growing and sustaining the viewership base. We’ll see if what WWE devises for their programming precipitates a jump in viewership next year from this year. Obviously it didn’t happen overnight in the mid-nineties and it won’t now either.
I’m not sure anyone can blame TV viewership habits for a 19% audience drop in seven days!
Last week’s episode of Dynamite was the worst ever. Just a complete ADHD Russoific clustermess. I’m not surprised that one in five people who watched that show didn’t want to come back this week.
In fact it would be more surprising and illogical if that drivel had not turned away viewers.
I’m desperate for the wrestling media to hold this promotion to account, in the hope that Tony Khan reins in his worst booking instincts, but I have seen nothing in the last three years to suggest the relationship will remain anything other than cosy.
Now that I watched the Wardlow segment AEW will be fortunate if ten percent more do not tune out.
I called this last week; him having all of the security guards piling on him and then thrusting all of them off in every direction is a emulation of a Hercules: The Legendary Journeys action sequence as was the beating up guards with one arm while having guards draped on his other arm. I like that show, but I don’t want to see it copied and pasted into a wrestling segment; that’s lame. Wardlow is not a mythical half-god after all. Did you notice how most of the crowd was just sitting on their hands and very quiet as AEW followers go? They really fell flat with Wardlow since the MJF feud.
Contrast that with how the crowd popped big when Christian did his heel turn, even though everyone knew that it was coming.