NXT’s second week of programming on the USA Network was a mixed result as the show had over one-million viewers but saw big drops among key demographics.
The show averaged 1,006,000 viewers, down 14.5% from last week’s debut on the network, which was on the high-end of a lot of estimates for week one. This week’s show topped the series-finale of “Suits”, which attracted 861,000 viewers. NXT dropped from fourth to eighth among the 18-49 demo in their second week.
There was competition on the evening with cable news doing big numbers over the whistle-blower scandal involving President Donald Trump that is dominating the political news cycle. It also saw the returns of “The Masked Singer” series on Fox that topped 8-million viewers along with Survivor on CBS (6.3 million), and Chicago Med on NBC (7.5 million).
The demographic breakdown shows the following results with comparisons to last week in brackets:
People 18-49: 0.32 (-25.5%)
Female 18-49: 0.23 (-23%)
Male 18-49: 0.40 (-28.5%)
People 18-34: 0.20 (-26%)
Female 12-34: 0.12 (-40%)
Male 12-34: 0.20 (-23%)
People 25-54: 0.37 (-23%)
People 50+: 0.48 (+2%)
It was a big drop in all but one of the key demos with the big hit among females 12-34 while the others still saw approximately a quarter of last week’s audience down. Last week saw a younger audience tuning in for NXT but this week it was the 50+ audience that held the number up as well as it did with the only demographic listed that was up from last week.
In comparing NXT’s demographics to Raw and SmackDown Live, this is the percentage that NXT retained from each program using this week’s numbers for all three shows:
People 18-49: 0.32 (45% of Raw, 48% of SmackDown)
Female 18-49: 0.23 (48% of Raw, 53% of SmackDown)
Male 18-49: 0.40 (43% of Raw, 44% of SmackDown)
People 18-34: 0.20 (43% of Raw, 49% of SmackDown)
Female 12-34: 0.12 (40% of Raw, 46% of SmackDown)
Male 12-34: 0.20 (42.5% of Raw, 45.5% of SmackDown)
People 25-54: 0.37 (43.5% of Raw, 45% of SmackDown)
People 50+: 0.48 (48.5% of Raw, 49.5% of SmackDown)
It is interesting that NXT’s highest retention from either show is among females 18-49 from SmackDown while the least retention is among females 12-34 from Raw.
Next week is a whole different ballgame with the introduction of All Elite Wrestling and what type of audience they draw, if there is a noticeable siphoning of NXT viewers for the new product, or more intriguing if NXT can maintain their range and AEW also produces its own audience. That would leave the obvious question of who those viewers are that tune in for AEW if there isn’t a dramatic drop in the NXT number and where have those wrestling fans or been, or have been fans been created?
NXT will also be graded on two hours of programming and not one, although next week is loaded and the only thing that is going to send viewers away is curiosity over what is happening on TNT and vice versa. It would be fascinating data to see the quarter-hour breakdowns next week as a better sense of what segments people tuned out from and if the opposite show saw a similar increase to demonstrate back-and-forth viewing.
Regardless, next week’s viewership figures will be analyzed and broken down from every angle and it will probably tell many stories but ultimately, it comes to each show finding its audience and stabilizing after 4-5 weeks with the expectation that both should do well next week because of all the promotion and hype from each side.
Viewership figures are courtesy of Showbuzz Daily
