AEW Dynamite Breaks 2020 Ratings Record Again This Week, Audience Rises, NXT Slightly Up

– Showbuzz Daily has the overnight ratings for this week’s Wednesday Night War battle between AEW Dynamite and NXT. Last week, AEW managed to score the highest rating for Dynamite in 2020 with the Winter Is Coming-themed special. This week featured another stacked episode, and AEW managed to break last week’s 2020 record with an even higher rating. Viewership was also up this week for AEW Dynamite.

Last night’s episode of Dynamite finished with 995,000 viewers. That’s a sizable increase from last week’s overnight viewing audience for 913,000 viewers for the live Winter Is Coming show. While the show didn’t manage to break one million viewers, AEW was still able to capitalize off of the buzz from last week, which featured the AEW debut of Sting and Kenny Omega winning the AEW World Championship after beating Jon Moxley, kicking off an inter-promotional angle between AEW and Impact Wrestling.

While last night’s episode of Dynamite was taped on December 3, AEW still loaded up the show, which featured Sting’s first interview segment in AEW after his debut, an appearance by NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, The Young Bucks in action, and the follow-up to the Kenny Omega angle. AEW was in a good position following last week’s show to capitalize on the buzz on Winter Is Coming, and last night’s TNT broadcast managed to do just that.

This is coupled with the Omega and Callis storyline also continuing on Tuesday’s edition of Impact Wrestling on AXS TV the night before. You might recall that Omega’s appearance on IMPACT! helped push the show to its biggest audience and ratings in years.

In the P18-49 key demographic, Dynamite finished with a 0.45 rating. That’s up from the 0.42 rating in the same key demo from last week. In terms of other demos, last night’s episode drew 0.29 in P18-34, and 0.49 in P25-54. In ages 50+, Dynamite drew a 0.29 rating.

This is not only AEW’s biggest rating of the year thus far, it’s also Dynamite’s highest rating in the key demo since October 23, 2019 episode, which drew an identical number and 963,000 viewers. The number is also tied for Dynamite’s third biggest rating in the key demo to date.

For comparison, around the same time last year, AEW drew a 0.28 rating and 778,000 viewers for the December 11, 2019 episode. That was also before the pandemic shutdowns.

Now, let’s get to NXT. This week’s episode followed up on last Sunday’s NXT TakeOver: WarGames event. At the very least, NXT’s audience didn’t drop. It was actually slightly up this week at 659,000 viewers, increasing from last week’s overnight audience of 658,000 viewers.

Ratings were also slightly up for last night’s USA Network broadcast. In the key demo, NXT drew a 0.17 rating, which is slightly up from last week’s 0.16. For comparison, NXT drew a 0.24 rating in the same demo and 778,000 viewers for the December 11, 2019 episode.

Dynamite ranked No. 2 in the Cable Top 150 rankings this week, keeping its slot from last week. NXT did move up the rankings, increasing from No. 40 from to the No. 37 spot. MTV’s The Challenge: Double Agents topped the ratings on the cable networks for last night with a 0.51 rating in the key demo. Tucker Carlson Tonight on FOX News topped the viewership for the evening with 3.980 million viewers.

The week-by-week numbers for the last 52 weeks are:

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)
November 25: AEW 0.26 (710,000 viewers), NXT 0.20 (712,000)
December 2nd: AEW 0.42 (913,000 viewers), NXT 0.16 (658,000)
December 9nd: AEW 0.45 (995,000 viewers), NXT 0.17 (659,000)

* – 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