AEW’s heavily promoted debut in Atlanta with its first steel cage match led to a victory with viewership while NXT also saw an increase in its viewership.
Going against the Democratic debate, AEW and NXT were up 9% and 5% respectively. Dynamite averaged 893,000 viewers on TNT while NXT, coming out of TakeOver: Portland averaged 794,000 viewers on the USA Network.
The debate began at 9 pm Eastern with 10.5 million people watching the first hour on NBC and 7.6 million on MSNBC.
AEW managed to finish fifth for the night on cable with a 0.31 in the 18-49 demo while NXT was 16th with a 0.25.
AEW stayed steady among their key demos with the largest gain among adults 18-34 that rose 12.5% followed by adults over 50 that improved by 12%.
NXT was a different story and was bolstered by a huge increase of 75% among women 12-34. It was the second-highest NXT has ever done in that demo going back to the October 2nd show going against the debut episode of Dynamite.
Last week, AEW did a 0.08 among women 12-34, which was a 38% drop from two weeks ago. This week, they did another 0.08, so the audience in that demo didn’t come back and something connected on NXT with that group.
NXT was also up big with adults 18-34 and males 12-34 which each increased by 27%.
The silver lining for NXT was topping AEW with adults 18-34 and women 12-34. The sides tied with women 18-34 and adults over 50, which has always been the demo NXT is strongest with compared to AEW.
AEW was headlined by its first steel cage match between Cody and Wardlow that has been advertised for over a month. The show also featured an AEW tag title match and Jon Moxley taking on Jeff Cobb. NXT countered with the grudge match between Velveteen Dream and Roderick Strong that was announced on last week’s program.
Next week, AEW will have a 30-minute Ironman match between Kenny Omega and PAC, the Best Friends taking on The Butcher & The Blade, and a ‘weigh-in’ between Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley going into the Revolution pay-per-view.
NXT will have a match between Tommaso Ciampa and Austin Theory and an appearance by Finn Balor.
Below is a breakdown of the key demographics and how they fared with last week’s figures:
ADULTS 18-34
AEW: 0.31 (+3%)
NXT: 0.25 (+4%)
FEMALES 18-49
AEW: 0.18 (-5%)
NXT: 0.18 (-10%)
MALES 18-49
AEW: 0.44 (+7%)
NXT: 0.32 (+14%)
ADULTS 18-34
AEW: 0.18 (+12.5%)
NXT: 0.19 (+27%)
FEMALES 12-34
AEW: 0.08 (Even)
NXT: 0.14 (+75%)
MALES 12-34
AEW: 0.22 (+22%)
NXT: 0.19 (+27%)
ADULTS 25-54
AEW: 0.36 (+3%)
NXT: 0.30 (+7%)
ADULTS 50+
AEW: 0.38 (+12%)
NXT: 0.38 (+5.5%)
