Photo courtesy: AEW
Wednesday night’s AEW and NXT viewership saw another decisive outcome for Dynamite with the show topping 900,000 viewers for the fourth time in 2020.
Dynamite was up 12% this week with 928,000 viewers tuning in on TNT for the show in Alabama featuring Cody receiving the ten lashes. The segment had been built throughout January as one of the stipulations for Cody to receive the match with MJF at ‘Revolution’ on February 29th.
NXT saw its own increase of 8% with the show averaging 770,000 viewers on the USA Network. By edging past the January 22nd episode, it was NXT’s most-watched live episode of 2020. The biggest element promoted ahead of time was Charlotte Flair’s appearance and the tease of answering Rhea Ripley’s challenge for WrestleMania. The match was not finalized and instead, Ripley and Bianca Belair jumped Flair.
In the 18-49 demographic, AEW outpaced NXT by a margin of 0.36 to 0.22. From last week, AEW was up 6% in the key demo and NXT was even.
AEW also experienced bumps among adults over 50 with a 17% increase from last week and was their largest gain. This was followed by males 12-34 up 12% and females 18-49 increasing by 10%. The only drop was among males 18-34 down 4% from 0.23 to 0.22.
NXT was largely even from last week except for females 12-34 which were up 14% and adults over 50 improving by 11%. That means both shows saw upticks among the oldest demographic. Adults over 50 were the only category that NXT controlled as has been the pattern since the shows began airing head-to-head.
It seems to be a strategy among AEW to promote several weeks in advance with the idea of building anticipation over several episodes. Next week’s show will feature two title matches as Kenny Omega & Hangman Page defend the tag titles against Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian and Riho defend the women’s title against Nyla Rose. On February 16th in Atlanta, they have promoted Cody’s match with Wardlow for a month as the first cage match in company history. The show in Atlanta will also feature a tag battle royal with the winners challenging for the titles at ‘Revolution’. They are also advertising a 30-minute Ironman match between Kenny Omega and Pac for the February 26th edition of the show in Kansas City, Missouri.
Below is a breakdown of the key demos from Wednesday night:
ADULTS 18-49
AEW: 0.36 (+16%)
NXT: 0.22 (Even)
FEMALES 18-49
AEW: 0.22 (+10%)
NXT: 0.15 (Even)
MALES 18-49
AEW: 0.50 (+4%)
NXT: 0.30 (+7%)
PEOPLE 18-34
AEW: 0.22 (-4%)
NXT: 0.14 (Even)
FEMALES 12-34
AEW: 0.13 (Even)
NXT: 0.08 (+14%)
MALES 12-34
AEW: 0.28 (+12%)
NXT: 0.15 (Even)
ADULTS 25-54
AEW: 0.39 (+8%)
NXT: 0.26 (Even)
ADULTS 50+
AEW: 0.34 (+17%)
NXT: 0.40 (+11%)
