Wednesday Night Wars 07/08/2020 Ratings

For the third week in a row, NXT had more viewers than Dynamite. So it is obvious that NXT's recent improvement in the ratings wasn't a fluke. (See graph above.) As usual, however, Dynamite came out ahead in the 18-49 demographics department. Here are the details.

• NXT's viewership decreased from 792,000 last week to 759,000 this week. That's a drop of 4.2%. The show's 18-49 demographics rating also fell acorrespondingly. It fell from 0.22 last week to 0.20 this week.

• The size of Dynamite's audience also fell by apprpximately the same amount. It went down by 4.4%, falling from 748,000 viewers last week to 715,000 viewers this week. The show's 18-49 demographics rating this week was 0.28. That's a small decrease from last week's 0.29.

With this week's NXT victory, a new pattern is now emerging in the Wednesday Night Wars. It is no longer a squash where Dynamite dominates in the ratings week after week. But at the same time, it is also not the case where NXT is dominating. That's because although NXT is consistently getting more viewers now, Dynamite is still getting significantly better ratings in the 18-49 demographic. And as people who follow television ratings know, that is the key demographic because it is that segment of the audience who has discretionary income. Therefore, that is realistically the only segment that advertisers care about. And in turn, that is the segment that television networks care about. So in a way, the results these last three weeks have been split between NXT and Dynamite depending on your point of view. There are die hard fans who believe it is the size of the audience that matters because it accurately reflects how good the product is. Yet at the same time, there are those who believe it is the "sellability" that matters since AEW and WWE are businesses at the end of the day. Interestingly, both Chris Jericho and Tony Khan have recently tweeted about Dynamite's high 18-49 demographic ratings.

This week's episodes of NXT and Dynamite saw night two of the Great American Bash and Fyter Fest respectively. Surprisingly, despite the pay-per-view labels and loaded cards, these two weeks' episodes didn't garner any spike in the ratings for either brand. In fact, the May 27th episode of Dynamite had higher ratings than both the Great American Bask or Fyter Fest. Still, AEW will be trying the same tactic again next week by labeling next week's Dynamite as Fight For the Fallen. We'll see if that makes a difference in next week's ratings and whether that will allow AEW to stop NXT's current winning streak.

Over on Monday and Friday nights, the ratings for both Raw and Smackdown were bad news for the WWE.

• The last episode of Raw drew its second smallest audience in history. That's even smaller than holiday episodes during which much of the audience is not watching television at all. It fell from 1,735,000 viewers last week to 1,687,000 this week. That's a drop of 2.8%. Despite the relatively tiny audience, though, the show's 18-49 demographics rating actually went up slightly this week. It increased from 0.48 last week to 0.49 this week.

• Like Raw, Smackdown's ratings also fell this past week, but it was by a shockingly large margin. It plummetted a giant 18.3%, falling from 2,174,000 viewers last week to 1,777,000 viewers this week. That's the show's worst viewership since moving to FOX back in October. At this point, Smackdown and Raw's viewership is at approximately the same level even though FOX has a much larger reach by being on free broadcast television. Luckily for WWE, the drop in the show's 18-49 demographics rating isn't as dramatic. It fell from 0.5 last week to 0.4 this week.

In terms of the Wednesday Night Wars, the tide does indeed seemed to have turned for the moment in NXT's favor. NXT's win-loss record is now 8-31-1 for viewership and 1-39 for the 18-49 demographic. In turn, Dynamite's win-loss record is now 31-8-1 for viewership and 39-1 for the 18-49 demographic. NXT is now on a bonified winning streak with three wins in a row.