Airing outside of its regular timeslot, AEW Rampage saw a decrease for its live episode featuring a Texas Death Match.
The April 15th edition of the program averaged 482,000 viewers and approximately 288,000 (0.22) in the 18-49 demographic, according to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics.
WWE Smackdown, Friday on Fox, 8-10p:
2,142,000 viewers
P18-49: 0.48 (623k)
Lowest P18-49 on Fox since July.AEW Rampage, early start on TNT at 7p:
482,000
P18-49: 0.22 (288k)
Down 12% in P18-49 from last week w/ normal start.📊 More demos & analysis: https://t.co/1SscdBCpr8 pic.twitter.com/WKuIaAkXSx
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) April 18, 2022
After posting its best numbers in months last week, the show that aired at 7 p.m. ET this past Friday dropped by 20 percent in viewers and was down 12 percent in the 18-49 demo for this week’s episode.
Thurston reports that Rampage only declined by three percent in 18-34 from last week while 35-49 dropped by 17 percent. In the 18-49 demo, men dropped 15 percent while women only declined seven percent.
If you exclude last week’s high number, this past Friday’s show was Rampage’s largest viewership since March 11th and its best 18-49 number since March 4th, so airing outside of the regular time did not harm the show’s performance. This fact is impressive given that TNT doesn’t have a staggered feed, so the show aired at 4 p.m. Pacific for viewers on the West Coast.
The show was bolstered by a Texas Death Match for the AEW Championship between Hangman Page and Adam Cole that was promoted for several weeks and was a rematch from the Revolution pay-per-view last month.
Showbuzz Daily is delayed in reporting its numbers this week, so we don’t have the breakdown of how the episode performed against other cable programming on Friday.
Rampage returns to its normal time this Friday at 10 p.m. ET on TNT with Jade Cargill defending the TBS Championship against Marina Shafir and Eddie Kingston takes on Daniel Garcia.
