AEW Dynamite Numbers Dip From Grand Slam Show, Tops Ratings Again, Rhodes to the Top Debuts With 422,000 Viewers

– Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston has the overnight ratings for last night’s AEW Dynamite. Last night’s show served as a special tribute show to late wrestler Jon Huber, aka Brodie Lee, who tragically passed away in December of last year. The show was held in Rochester, New York, which is Huber’s hometown. He was originally scheduled to make his AEW debut on Dynamite in Rochester and be revealed as The Exalted One as The Dark Order. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions led to Dynamite having to stay in Jacksonville, Florida for a while.

Numbers for this week’s Dynamite were down from last week, but that’s likely to be expected as last week’s special Dynamite Grand Slam edition was a big event episode, with AEW making its New York debut at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York. It was also jam-packed show featuring Bryan Danielson and Kenny Omega wrestling to a 30-minute draw, and it was promoted as a pay-per-view level event on free TV.

Last night’s Dynamite drew an average overnight audience of 1.152 million viewers. That’s down from last week’s Grand Slam event. Last week’s Grand Slam show drew an overnight audience 1.273 million viewers.

Ratings in the P18-49 key demo were also down this week. Last night’s Dynamite drew a 0.45 rating, or 588,000 viewers, in the key demo. That’s down from the Grand Slam show rating, which drew a 0.48 rating, in the same key demo.

For comparison, this week’s WWE Raw was ahead of Dynamite in the key demo at 0.48 for WWE versus 0.45 for AEW. However, per Thurston’s stats, Dynamite was ahead of Raw in the M18-49 demographic, drawing 437,000 viewers compared to 387,000 viewers for Raw.

While numbers were slightly down this week, Dynamite managed to maintain its No. 1 slot among cable originals for Wednesday night, per Showbuzz Daily.

Elsewhere, the debut of the new AEW reality show, Rhodes To The Top, which followed Dynamite on TNT, debuted with 422,000 viewers. The show drew an overnight rating of 0.17 in the key demo. The show ranked No. 16 for the night among cable originals.

The Five on FOX News topped overall viewership for Wednesday night with 3.431 million viewers.

AEW Dynamite last night on TNT was watched by 1,152,000 viewers on average.

588,000 were aged 18 to 49 (0.45 rating).

Dynamite was #1 on the day in the demo among cable originals, according to Showbuzz.

📊 More demos & analysis: https://t.co/47CmW5Qp5R pic.twitter.com/JU9yQJNptf

— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) September 30, 2021

The debut of Rhodes to the Top, immediately following Dynamite, was watched by 422,000 viewers on average and 227,000 18 to 49 (0.17). It ranked #16 on cable for the day.

In the demo, male-female split was 67-33, compared to Dynamite's 74-26.https://t.co/47CmW5Qp5R pic.twitter.com/WSb7eop5J2

— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) September 30, 2021

Raw beat Dynamite in the demo this week, the former had a 0.48 demo rating to Dynamite's 0.45.

Dynamite again was ahead in M18-49. 437,000 to Raw's 387,000.https://t.co/47CmW5Qp5R pic.twitter.com/Ez8k6VgulW

— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) September 30, 2021