By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite television show averaged 691,000 viewers for TBS, according to ProgrammingInsider.com. The viewership count was down from the 698,000 viewership total from last week’s show.
Powell’s POV: Dynamite finished with a 0.22 rating in 18-49 demo, down from last week’s 0.24 rating in the same demo. The declines in both categories are disappointing considering this was the first show coming out of the company’s biggest event of the year. Tuesday’s NXT finished with 615,000 viewers and a 0.17 rating on USA Network. One year ago, the August 30, 2023 edition of Dynamite on TBS delivered 871,000 viewers and a 0.30 rating in the 18-49 demographic for the All In fallout edition, which was also the All Out go-home show.
That humongous rights fee increase that’s been coming for months is gonna be huge. Huge I tell you even though they’re hemorrhaging viewers and they can’t even get 2000 people in an arena. I just can’t believe that latest game changer Rick O Shea didn’t bring in any new viewers. He’s what AEW needs. A flippy guy that can’t talk. But everything is great. Ding!
Literally nobody except the dirtsheets and the teeny, tiny group of sickos cares anymore. They saw an arena sized drop in attendance for the meaningless Wembley event and they ran Dynamite in front of 2k people in a 15k arena.
When you push the scrawny, boring jobbers instead of the big dudes with big personalities, you get something that doesn’t appeal to a wide enough audience to be sustainable without a trust fund billionaire keeping it afloat.
A Shane McMahon NWO angle isn’t going to make things better.