For the first time this year, NXT went unopposed without AEW Dynamite airing Wednesday night. The result was a large increase from last week’s audience and doubling in the key demographic.
Wednesday’s edition of NXT averaged 853,000 viewers and a 0.24 rating in the 18-49 demographic representing increases of 38 percent and 50 percent respectively. After finishing 65th among cable programming last Wednesday, this week NXT shot up to 23rd place.
The viewership average represents NXT’s highest figure since November 20th and fifth-highest since launching on the USA Network last September. The 18-49 rating was its highest since February 19th.
The last time NXT ran unopposed was on Christmas Day last year where the program averaged 831,000 viewers and a 0.22 rating in the 18-49 demo.
Even though AEW didn’t have a new episode, NXT still faced competition from the NBA with two playoff games on TNT. The earlier game between the 76ers and Celtics finished fifth on cable and ran until 9:15 pm followed by the Mavericks vs. Clippers game that was second among all cable programs. The first game did 1,705,000 and a 0.68 in the demo and the later game averaged 2,283,000 with a 0.98 rating in the demo.
Unlike Monday Night Raw, they avoided going head-to-head with the Democratic convention, which began at 10 pm Eastern and featured Barack Obama and Vice-Presidential candidate Kamala Harris among the speakers. Across all the networks, the convention averaged 21.5 million viewers. There was pre-convention coverage from many of the cable networks that did go against NXT.
Since NXT finished out of the top fifty cable programs last week, we cannot compare all the key demos. However, looking at the ratings from the August 5th episode of NXT, the lack of AEW competition didn’t translate to increases among each group. The largest loss was with women 12-34 which were down 44 percent from two weeks ago registering a 0.05 this week. The other big loss was with adults 18-34 that was down 27 percent from two weeks ago.
The largest gain compared to August 5th was with men 18-49 that grew by 28 percent followed by adults 25-54 increasing by 25 percent. In the 18-49 demographic NXT was up 20 percent compared to two weeks ago.
Next week’s episode of NXT also runs unopposed with AEW Dynamite airing on Thursday, August 27th.
Here is a breakdown of the key demos for NXT and our comparisons to August 5th, which is the last set of data we have for NXT ratings:
ADULTS 18-49
This week: 0.24 (+50 percent from last week)
Two weeks ago: +20 percent
FEMALES 18-49
This week: 0.16
Two weeks ago: +6.6 percent
MALES 18-49
This week: 0.32
Two weeks ago: + 28 percent
ADULTS 18-34
This week: 0.08
Two weeks ago: -27 percent
FEMALES 12-34
This week: 0.05
Two weeks ago: -44 percent
MALES 12-34
This week: 0.14
Two weeks ago: Even
ADULTS 25-54
This week: 0.30
Two weeks ago: +25 percent
ADULTS 50+
This week: 0.42
Two weeks ago: +7.5 percent
