Tony Khan on AEW’s TV Viewership Numbers, Their Relationship With WBD CEO David Zaslav

– During a recent interview with Wrestling Observer Radio ahead of today’s AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2024 event, AEW President Tony Khan discussed the company’s television numbers, the company’s relationship with broadcast partner Warner Bros. Discovery, and more. Below are some highlights:

On David Zaslav’s support of AEW: “That’s a really good thing for the company to have, is the support of the head of the studio, one of the top, most powerful people in Hollywood who loves AEW, loves what we’re doing. And has gotten a look under the hood of AEW also. Very publicly, it’s not a secret, that they’ve also seen what WWE is doing and analyzed it, done the comps, and I think there’s a very glass-half-full story to that which is they stuck with us and they want to be with us. They had a chance to make a deal with someone else and they didn’t.”

Tony Khan on AEW’s TV numbers: “We’ve had historically really strong numbers and maintain really strong numbers in TV and that is the thing we need to do is keep doing what we’re doing because the numbers we have are numbers people in TV would kill to have.”

On not being focused on what the competition is doing: “And I really need to focus on doing good shows for AEW, not about what the competition is doing. I think that in this case our competition going out ahead of us and getting good media rights deals was a positive for us and actually is good for us because we have very good historical comps, and these comps are very favorable for us. So that’s one thing I’ve done, a ton of market research and retained top analysts and data scientists and am looking at this stuff.”

On AEW’s ratings: “Most TV shows would kill for our ratings and demos. And in sports, we skew really young.”

AEW is still in the midst of an exclusive negotiating window with Warner Bros. Discovery for a media broadcast deal renewal. AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2024 takes place later tonight at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York. The show will be broadcast live tonight on pay-per-view.