By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite television show produced 683,000 viewers for Wednesday’s episode on TNT, according to Showbuzzdaily.com. The viewership count was down from the 778,000 viewers who watched last week’s episode.
Powell’s POV: NXT won the battle over AEW by 112,000 viewers. NXT finished 26th in the 18-49 demographic, while AEW finished tied for 28th in the same category. The impeachment hearings airing on various cable news networks worked against both shows.
The hearings had no effect. NXT even went up slightly. The real problem is AEW is a bad indie with a ton of money behind it. Once you’ve seen all the flips, dives, and obviously choreographed cooperation spots, there’s almost nothing else left.
Now the question is how long before Shad Khan puts AEW on the scrap heap along with Tom Coughlin, despite it being his son’s shiny new toy.
The hearings definitely had an effect on both shows. To think otherwise is crazy. NXT went up, but NXT would have done an even better number were it not for the hearings. NXT had a better show on paper and in execution, so I’m not saying it would have changed the outcome of the weekly battle, but the numbers for both shows would have been higher without the hearings. Just look at how high that impeachment related coverage performed in the cable ratings as proof.
Just look at the ratings against anything for proof that the hearings did nothing. AEW and NXT are hovering around the same ratings marks every week. A slight bump for NXT and a decent sized drop for AEW aren’t out of line with anything we’ve seen for 2 months. There’s nothing in the data to suggest a single viewer more if the impeachment hearings weren’t happening.
According to the New York Post, at least 15 million people watched the hearings. I know. I know. You love seeking attention on here.
And yet NXT viewership went UP. If the hearings were such a deterrent, then why did they not have a negative effect on NXT?
I’ll give you a hint, the TV news and TV wrestling fanbases have almost no overlap. The hearings are just another AEW fanboy excuse for a bad product that is tanking.
AEW viewership has dropped 50% since it debuted in October.
Now that’s what I call a paradigm shift