Wednesday Night Wars 08/12/2020 Ratings

The ratings for both Dynamite and NXT fell very significantly this week. (See graph above.) With Dynamite's recent momentum, though, it saw a slightly smaller drop and was able to come out ahead again. Here are the details.

• Dynamite's ratings got a huge boost last week, making that episode the highest rated episode in months. Unfortunately for AEW, this week's ratings saw a huge drop, essentially losing most of the audience it had gained last week. The number of viewers droppped from 901,000 last week to 792,000 this week. That's a big tumble of 12.1%. Similarly, the show's 18-49 demographics rating also fell as it decreased from 0.36 last week to 0.32 this week.

• Although Dynamite's ratings took a huge hit this week, NXT saw even worse results. The viewership went down from 753,000 viewers last week to 619,000 viewers this week. That's a giant downward slide of 17.8%. The show's 18-49 demographics rating wasn't much better. It dropped from 0.2 last week all the way to 0.16 this week.

A large reason why there was such a big drop in the ratings for both shows this week was probably the return of live sports back to television. The NBA, NHL, and MLB have all resumed after a hiatus due to the pandemic, and it's a safe assumption that such sporting events will draw eyeballs away from both wrestling programs. Similar to wrestling, these games are held without any fans in attendance at the moment. But unlike wrestling, they are much less dependent on live crowd reactions to be entertaining. So it will be tough for any wrestling show to compete. With that being the case, the question now becomes which show will be able to weather the storm better until crowds can return to wrestling arenas again. AEW currently has the larger audience on average. However, as we have seen from the pattern of ratings in the past, WWE enjoys a more loyal (albeit older) fanbase.

The situation with the Wednesday Night Wars will be interesting next week because Dynamite will be preempted. This is due to an NBA game airing on TNT on Wednesday night. So instead of Wednesday, Dynamite will air on Saturday, August 22, at 6 PM directly after the NBA playoff. Under normal circumstances, it is almost for certain that Dynamite won't get anywhere close to its usual ratings during such a time slot. After all, it will be on a weekend, and it's not even prime time. However, when you consider that the lead-in will be the NBA playoffs, this might actually be a blessing in disguise for AEW. Even if Dynamite's ratings for the evening come up short, a lot of NBA fans will likely get a glimpse of AEW for the first time. And in the long run, this might give AEW more of the mainstream attention it deserves.

Over on Monday and Wednesday, the ratings for Raw and Smackdown both saw slight increases.

• On Raw, it looks like the new storylines/segments of Retribution and Raw Underground have lost some of their momentum. The size of Raw's audience only grew by 0.4% this week, so it essentially remained the same. It grew ever so slightly from 1,714,667 viewers last week to 1,722,000 viewers this week. Raw's 18-49 demographics rating, however, went in the opposite direction. It fell from 0.51 last week to 0.47 this week. So it looks like WWE is once again having a problem holding on to a younger audience.

• Smackdown's ratings fared better than Raw's. The audience grew from 1,894,000 viewers last week to 1,962,000 viewers this week. That's a much more notable 3.6%. The situation with the show's 18-49 demographics rating is interesting. For the fifth week in a row, that rating has remained at 0.5.

This week's results increases Dynamite's winning streak in the Wednesday Night Wars to five weeks in a row. This makes the AEW show's win-loss record 36-8-1 for viewership and 44-1 for the 18-49 demographic. On the flip side, NXT's win-loss record is now 8-36-1 for viewership and 1-44 for the 18-49 demographic. As previously mentioned, Dynamite will be preempted next week, so it is unclear yet how next week's results will be scored.