On a night where it was guaranteed AEW and NXT would be affected by the Vice-Presidential debate, both shows saw similar decreases in their overall audience.
In the middle of a heated U.S. Election, the VP debate involving Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris attracted over 50 million viewers across all network & cable platforms. The audience was significantly higher than the 2016 VP debate between Pence and Tim Kaine that averaged approximately 35 million viewers.
Due to the debate coverage, AEW fell to #19 among cable networks with 753,000 viewers and a 0.31 rating in the 18-49 demographic. While their drop in viewership was 13 percent, its demo figure only fell by 6 percent from last week’s 0.33.
Conversely, NXT also dropped 13 percent with 639,000 viewers on the USA Network but saw a more dramatic decline of 16 percent in its 18-49 number with a 0.16 compared to 0.19 last week. The show fell out of the top fifty cable programs at #56 and therefore, we don’t have a complete breakdown of the demos provided by Showbuzz Daily for the top fifty programs.
In Canada, AEW Dynamite finished fourth among the sports programming for the night with 122,000 viewers on TSN2 trailing Game 3 between the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees and the San Diego Padres vs. L.A. Dodgers game. However, in the 25-54 demographic, AEW Dynamite topped all sports programs in the top ten list with 92,300 viewers.
AEW was promoted around the 30th Anniversary of Chris Jericho with Jericho teaming with Jake Hager against Luther & Serpentico, and a heavily hyped Dog Collar Match between Brodie Lee and Cody that began minutes before the debate commenced at 9 pm Eastern.
AEW was hit hardest among adults over the age of 50 that fell by 23.5 percent this week to a 0.26 rating. Adults 25-54 dropped by 12.5 percent and adults 18-34 decreased by 10 percent. Among AEW’s younger audience, they were down but not by significant margins. With females 12-34, they were even with last week’s show and was the only demo that didn’t drop.
Next week’s programming features AEW’s Anniversary special where they are advertising three title matches with Jon Moxley vs. Lance Archer, Cody vs. Orange Cassidy and FTR vs. Best Friends on a live show from Daily’s Place.
Here is a breakdown of AEW’s numbers among the key demographics. Due to NXT finishing outside the top fifty cable programs, we don’t have data for the program beyond the 18-49 figures:
Source: Showbuzz Daily
ADULTS 18-49
AEW: 0.31 (-6 percent)
NXT: 0.16 (-16 percent)
FEMALES 18-49
AEW: 0.21 (-8.5 percent)
MALES 18-49
AEW: 0.41 (-7 percent)
ADULTS 18-34
AEW: 0.18 (-10 percent)
FEMALES 12-34
AEW: 0.16 (Even)
MALES 12-34
AEW: 0.15 (-6.25 percent)
ADULTS 25-54
AEW: 0.35 (-12.5 percent)
ADULTS 50+
AEW: 0.23 (-23.5 percent)
