AEW Dynamite Surges in Numbers This Week, Breaks Back Into Top 10, NXT Drops in Ratings

– Showbuzz Daily has the overnight ratings for last night’s Wednesday Night Wars battle. AEW Dynamite saw a nice surge in ratings and viewership this week, while NXT took another ratings hit while only managing a minuscule audience increase. Overall, Dynamite made a great showing for itself on a night where the 2020 NBA Draft dominated the viewing audiences on the cable networks.

Dynamite managed to break 800,000 viewers for the first time in a little over a month. Last night’s show finished with an average overnight audience of 850,000 viewers. AEW gained about 86,000 viewers from last week’s audience of 764,000.

NXT gained a small amount of viewership, but not very much this week. Last night’s episode, which was headlined by an acclaimed NXT Women’s title match between Io Shirai vs. Rhea Ripley, managed only 638,000 viewers. That’s only slightly above last week’s audience of 632,000 viewers.

The ratings numbers for last night’s Dynamite are also very interesting. AEW Dynamite shot up in the P18-49 key demographic. Dynamite drew a 0.37 rating, well up from last week’s 0.30 in the same key demo. In recent weeks, both Dynamite and NXT had to deal with coverage from the 2020 Presidential Election and its ensuing fallout.

This is Dynamite’s best rating in over two months, since the September 9 episode drew an identical number. What’s interesting about that rating is that it was the second show where Dynamite was not going head-to-head with a brand-new episode of NXT, since the show was pre-empted due to the NHL Playoffs. The September 9 episode which had an identical rating drew 1.016 million viewers for the overnight audience. Comparatively, the episode from a week before (Sept. 2) where Dynamite was not head-to-head with NXT drew a 0.36 rating in the key demo and had 928,000 viewers.

AEW President Tony Khan received a great deal of criticism for proclaiming on social media that last week’s Dynamite would see a shift in the balance of power in the wrestling industry. The episode didn’t really live up to that, but there was a tease of a potential feud between Cody and NBA star Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal). Also, PAC made his long-awaited return to Dynamite, inserting himself in a feud with Eddie Kingston’s stable. For last night’s TNT broadcast, PAC made his in-ring return in a match against The Blade.

Additionally, last night’s episode followed the launch of AEW and TNT’s new “Boundless” ad campaign, created by Director X (Julien Christian Lutz). The ad campaign was highlighted by a video called The History of Revolution X, showcasing the underdog story of AEW and its roster. While, there were likely a lot of contributing factors to AEW’s increase in numbers for Nov. 18, the buzz following the launch of the new ad campaign certainly helped to some degree.

While NXT gained a slight amount of viewers last night, ratings in the key demo saw a decrease. This week’s show fell to a 0.14 rating in the key demo, which is down from last week’s 0.16 rating. While the number is likely discouraging after such a highly praised title main event, the good news is that 0.14 appears to be the basement for NXT’s weekly TV ratings on the USA Network. NXT has not fallen below a 0.14 rating since the May 20 episode drew a 0.13.

With its increase in numbers, AEW Dynamite shot up the rankings. Dynamite finally broke back into the Top 10 for the first time in a while, finishing with a No. 7 ranking for the Cable Top 150. NXT was still well outside the Top 50, keeping its No. 56 slot from last week.

The NBA Draft coverage on ESPN topped the ratings for the evening with a 1.10 in the key demo. Tucker Carlson Tonight on FOX News topped the viewership for the evening with 4.490 million viewers.

Here are the week by week AEW and NXT numbers:

October 2nd: AEW 0.68 demo rating (1.409 million viewers), NXT 0.32 demo rating (891,000 viewers)
October 9th: AEW 0.46 (1.018 million viewers), NXT 0.22 (790,000 viewers)
October 16th: AEW 0.44 (1.014 million viewers), NXT 0.20 (712,000 viewers)
October 23rd: AEW 0.45 (963,000 viewers), NXT 0.21 (698,000 viewers)
October 30th: AEW 0.33 (759,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (580,000 viewers)
November 6th: AEW 0.35 (822,000 viewers), NXT 0.30 (813,000 viewers)
November 13th: AEW 0.43 (957,000 viewers), NXT 0.25 (750,000 viewers)
November 20th: AEW 0.39 (893,000 viewers), NXT 0.30 (916,000 viewers)
November 27th: AEW 0.26 (663,000 viewers), NXT 0.24 (818,000 viewers)
December 4th: AEW 0.32 (851,000 viewers), NXT 0.29 (845,000 viewers)
December 11th: AEW 0.28 (778,000 viewers), NXT 0.24 (778,000 viewers)
December 18th: AEW 0.25 (683,000 viewers), NXT 0.27 (795,000 viewers)
December 25th: AEW N/A, NXT 0.22 (831,000 viewers)
January 1st: AEW 0.36 (967,000 viewers), NXT 0.15 (548,000)
January 8th: AEW 0.36 (947,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (721,000)
January 15th: AEW 0.38 (940,000 viewers), NXT 0.21 (700,000)
January 22nd: AEW 0.35 (871,000 viewers), NXT 0.24 (769,000)
January 29nd: AEW 0.34 (828,000 viewers), NXT 0.22 (712,000)
February 5th: AEW 0.36 (928,000 viewers), NXT 0.22 (770,000)
February 12th: AEW 0.30 (817,000 viewers), NXT 0.24 (757,000)
February 19th: AEW 0.31 (893,000 viewers), NXT 0.25 (794,000)
February 26th: AEW 0.30 (865,000 viewers), NXT 0.23 (717,000)
March 4th: AEW 0.35 (906,000 viewers), NXT 0.23 (718,000)
March 11th: AEW 0.26 (766,000 viewers), NXT 0.21 (697,000)
March 18th: AEW 0.35 (932,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (542,000)
March 25th: AEW 0.34 (819,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (669,000)
April 1: AEW 0.25 (685,000 viewers), NXT 0.15 (590,000)
April 8: AEW 0.26 (692,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (693,000)
April 15: AEW 0.25 (683,000 viewers), NXT 0.17 (692,000)
April 22: AEW 0.25 (731,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (665,000)
April 29: AEW 0.27 (693,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (637,000)
May 6: AEW 0.28 (732,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (663,000)
May 13: AEW 0.23 (654,000 viewers), NXT 0.15 (604,000)
May 20: AEW 0.26 (701,000 viewers), NXT 0.13 (592,000)
May 27: AEW 0.32 (821,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (731,000)
June 3: AEW 0.29 (730,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (715,000)
June 10: AEW 0.23 (677,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (673,000)
June 17: AEW 0.28 (772,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (746,000)
June 24: AEW 0.22 (633,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (786,000)
July 1: AEW 0.29 (748,000 viewers), NXT 0.22 (792,000)
July 8: AEW 0.28 (715,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (759,000)
July 15: AEW 0.29 (788,000 viewers), NXT 0.14 (631,000)
July 22: AEW 0.32 (845,000 viewers), NXT 0.17 (615,000)
July 29: AEW 0.30 (773,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (707,000)
August 5: AEW 0.36 (901,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (753,000)
August 12: AEW 0.32 (792,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (619,000)
August 19: AEW N/A, NXT 0.24 (853,000)
August 22: AEW 0.31 (755,000 viewers), NXT N/A
August 26: AEW N/A, NXT 0.24 (824,000)
August 28: AEW 0.29 (813,000 viewers), NXT N/A
September 1: AEW N/A, NXT 0.26, (849,000)
September 2: AEW 0.36 (928,000 viewers), NXT 0.04, (183,000)*
September 8: AEW N/A, NXT 0.22 (838,000)
September 9: AEW 0.37 (1.016 million viewers), NXT N/A*
September 16: AEW 0.34 (886,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (689,000)
September 22: AEW 0.26 (585,000 viewers)**, NXT N/A
September 23: AEW 0.32 (835,000 viewers), NXT 0.18 (696,000)
September 30: AEW 0.33 (866,000 viewers), NXT 0.19 (732,000)
October 7: AEW 0.31 (753,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (639,000)
October 14: AEW 0.30 (826,000 viewers), NXT 0.17 (651,000)
October 21: AEW 0.30 (753,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (644,000)
October 28: AEW 0.31 (781,000 viewers), NXT 0.25 (876,000)
November 4: AEW 0.30 (717,000 viewers), NXT 0.14 (610,000)
November 11: AEW 0.30 (764,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (632,000)
November 18: AEW 0.37 (850,000 viewers), NXT 0.14 (638,000)

* – These episodes were reruns of the Tuesday new episodes of NXT that re-aired on the SyFy channel.
** – This was a special late night, one-hour Tuesday night edition of AEW Dynamite