In their first head-to-head battle in over a month, AEW and NXT fell from their unopposed figures the week prior with Dynamite outdrawing NXT.
Both shows benefited from the NBA playoffs having an off night and lessened the competition allowing AEW Dynamite to finish third for the night on cable with 886,000 viewers and a 0.34 rating in the 18-49 demographic.
While the audience and demo ratings for both shows were down from last week, that was to be expected with each running on separate nights last week. If anything, NXT would have the greater disadvantage running on Tuesdays for the last two weeks while AEW returned to its normal night a week ago topping one million viewers for its September 9th episode following the All Out pay-per-view.
In Canada, AEW Dynamite averaged 150,600 with 79,500 in the 25-54 demographic on TSN2. They were the third most-watched sports program that night with the Toronto Blue Jays vs. New York Yankees game topping the sports chart. NXT does not air live on Wednesday nights in Canada, so there isn’t a comparison to make.
NXT finished 31st among cable programming on Wednesday with 689,000 viewers and a 0.18 rating in the 18-49 demographic, representing declines of 18 percent in both categories from last week’s Super Tuesday II.
Despite going head-to-head this week, both AEW and NXT saw increases with its 18-34 audience this week with AEW up 8 percent and NXT increased by 11 percent.
The audiences that were down significantly from the unopposed episodes were the older audiences. Among 25-54s, AEW dropped 11.5 percent and NXT fell 21 percent. Adults over 50 fell 20 percent for AEW and NXT declined by 16 percent in the older demo. Both shows also saw double-digit declines among its 18-49 male audiences.
It was the typical pattern as AEW outdrew NXT in all the demos except adults over 50, which was close as NXT beat AEW by 0.04.
AEW’s big victories were with adults 18-34, where they doubled NXT and almost doubled them in the coveted 18-49 grouping.
NXT is promoting a significant show next week where they will determine the contenders for NXT TakeOver to challenge for Finn Balor’s NXT Championship and Io Shirai’s NXT Women’s Championship. AEW will counter with a live show featuring Jon Moxley, Will Hobbs & Darby Allin vs. Lance Archer, Brian Cage & Ricky Starks, as well as a TNT Championship match between Brodie Lee and Orange Cassidy as the key matches.
For the demos, we used last week’s unopposed shows as a comparison to illustrate how much running with competition affected both programs this week:
Source: Showbuzz Daily
ADULTS 18-49
AEW: 0.34 (-8 percent)
NXT: 0.18 (-18 percent)
FEMALES 18-49
AEW: 0.23 (-4 percent)
NXT: 0.13 (-13 percent)
MALES 18-49
AEW: 0.46 (-10 percent)
NXT: 0.23 (-21 percent)
ADULTS 18-34
AEW: 0.24 (+9 percent)
NXT: 0.10 (+11 percent)
FEMALES 12-34
AEW: 0.15 (Even)
NXT: 0.06 (Even)
MALES 12-34
AEW: 0.26 (+8 percent)
NXT: 0.14 (Even)
ADULTS 25-54
AEW: 0.38 (-11.5 percent)
NXT: 0.22 (-21 percent)
ADULTS 50+
AEW: 0.32 (-20 percent)
NXT: 0.36 (-16 percent)
