AEW’s second annual ‘Winter is Coming’ event was highlighted by a 60-minute draw, however, its key demo figure dropped with overall viewership increasing.
The December 15th episode from Garland averaged 978,000 viewers with approximately 398,000 (0.31) in the 18-49 demographic, according to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
The 18-49 number would be the lowest for a Wednesday night episode of Dynamite since May during the NBA playoffs. This excludes episodes that aired on Friday or Saturday night during that period.
Overall viewership increased by 9 percent, largely because of the increase in the 50+ demo. That category did 0.44, which would be Dynamite’s highest in the 50+ demo since October 6th, and carried the overall viewership number with a 26 percent increase from last week’s rating in the demo.
The 18-49 audience dropped 6.5 percent and fell beneath 400,000 viewers. Females in the key demo saw a drop of 11.5 percent from last week while males 18-49 fell by 4 percent. Even with the drop, the male 18-49 number was only topped by the two NBA games for the entire night on cable.
The 18-34 demo saw a 12 percent increase, which was largely from the increase of males in that demo.
In 35-49, they fell from 306,000 to 264,000, according to data from Brandon Thurston.
AEW went against ESPN’s coverage of the L.A. Lakers vs. Dallas Mavericks, which topped cable for the night with 0.65 in 18-49 and 1,879,000 viewers. In the key demo, AEW was topped by both NBA games, MTV’s The Challenge and Real Housewives with AEW finishing #5 among cable originals.
In Canada, the show fell 13 percent in viewership with 132,000 viewers on TSN 2. In the 25-54 demo, AEW averaged 70,000, which was a decrease of 16 percent from last week.
‘Winter is Coming’ featured the unique presentation of a 60-minute draw between Hangman Page and Bryan Danielson over the first hour of the program. The rest of the show contained three matches including the main event between MJF and Dante Martin for the Dynamite diamond ring.
Last year’s ‘Winter is Coming’ featured Kenny Omega defeating Jon Moxley for the AEW Championship on December 3, 2020. That show averaged 913,000 viewers and 543,000 (0.42) in the 18-49 demographic. While last year’s show had limited fans in attendance, it was not affected by the west coast audience watching the show outside of prime time, which is a factor affecting this year’s show.
Next week’s ‘Holiday Bash’ edition of the program from the Greensboro Coliseum will see CM Punk teaming with Sting & Darby Allin against MJF & FTR, as well as Malakai Black facing Griff Garrison.
