By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite television show averaged 655,000 viewers for TBS, according to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics.com. The viewership count was down from the 679,000 viewership average for last Wednesday’s show. Dynamite finished with a 0.19 rating in 18-49 demo, up from last Wednesday’s 0.18 rating in the same demo.
Powell’s POV: The Max streaming numbers are not included in the rating or viewership count listed above. Tuesday’s NXT on The CW averaged 812,000 viewers and a 0.22 rating in the 18-49 demo. One year ago, the January 24, 2024 edition of Dynamite on TBS averaged 837,000 viewers along with a 0.27 rating in the 18-49 demographic.
Nobody is watching on Max. Nobody has Max and for December it finished next to last among pay and free streamers at 1.2% of TV viewership.
You have to go out of your way in their shitty app to even find AEW.
I split between Max and TV (I typically get pissed with Max’s flaky rewind and move back to TV). Jake Barnett watches on Max. I believe Will Pruett watches on Max. And I hear from readers show stream the shows on Max.
WBD claims Max has over 110.5 million subscribers. That’s misleading because they are including Max subscribers, Discovery+ subscribers, and traditional HBO subscribers (am I counted twice because I have Max through DirecTV and use that to sign into the Roku app?). But it’s likely that Max has more subscribers than Peacock, which has 36 million subscribers.
The last Saturday Night’s Main Event had 1.59 million viewers on NBC and 700,000 via Peacock. They didn’t really push the Peacock option aggressively for SNME, so having nearly a third of the total views come from Peacock is pretty good.
There’s no way of knowing what AEW is doing on Max because WBD won’t release the numbers, but it’s crazy to assume no one is watching or even that the number is small because it’s truly the great unknown. But I do know there are a lot of people who cut the cord along with younger people who never had cable or satellite to begin with. So while I have no clue what type of numbers Max is bringing in, I’ll always list that Max numbers are not included in the ratings report because it’s the fair thing to do.
YOY Dynamite has lost 22% of total viewers, 30% of the demo. Just imagine where that will be by the end of their deal. I’m sure it’s all bc of streaming and people prepping for snow storms.