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Welcome to another weekly article about the US TV ratings for wrestling shows.
RAW is cashing in nicely, the NBA is making a comeback, and MLB is pushing AEW and NXT to face off again, the first time in 18 months.
RAW Ratings (17th October) :
Ratings : 1 804 000 (-1,10 %) & 0.50 sur les 18-49 [-0.05]
Ratings per hour :
H1 : [P2+ : 1 941 000] [18-49 : 0.54] [Cable Pos :5]
H2 : [P2+ : 1 852 000] [18-49 : 0.51] [Cable Pos : 6]
H3 : [P2+ : 1 618 000] [18-49 : 0.44] [Cable Pos : 7]
Great numbers for this episode of RAW which seems to have capitalized on last week's very big episode (Season Premier, post Extreme Rules, DX's birthday). The curiosity worked and many viewers came back for this week's episode. Maintaining such high ratings (around 1,800,000 and 0.50) would be a godsend for WWE and USA Network, both parties would immediately sign on to keep it up until 2023. Nevertheless, it will not be an easy task and it will take a lot of effort to get there.
Once again, the NFL dominated TV by far (and will continue to do so until the Super Bowl), with this week's game registering an audience of 12,050,000 as well as a 3.75 in the 18-49 demographic. Also of note were strong ratings for The Voice on NBC (6,227,000 & 0.70) and 911 on FOX (4,965,000 & 0.63).
Ratings NXT 2.0 (18th October) :
Ratings : 678 000 (-8,28 %) & 0.18 sur les 18-49 [+0.03]
Cable Pos : 12th.
For the first time in over 18 months (559 days to be exact), NXT and Dynamite came face to face on American television. This was enough to inflame some Internet users on Twitter with the old "Wednesday night wars". On this occasion, Triple H pulled out all the stops for what he said was his developmental show on Ariel Helwani. Indeed, he decided to invite many Superstars from the main roster in order to do everything possible to increase the numbers of NXT and put small obstacles in the wheels of Dynamite.
The fact is that the technique worked pretty well on NXT's numbers which, despite an 8% drop in P2+ viewership saw its 18-49 demographic gain 0.03 points and the show climbed to 12th place on cable (up from 14th place last week).
That would almost make you forget that this Tuesday also marked the return of the NBA on TNT, which had a live head-to-head match with NXT and AEW. A game that recorded an audience of 2,984,000 viewers with a 1.24 in the 18-49 demographic. However, it will be the 10:00 pm game that will finish on top of the cable (3,551,000 & 1.42).
Ratings AEW Dynamite (18th October) :
Ratings : 752 000 (-23,50 %) & 0.26 sur les 18-49 [-0.06]
Cable Pos : 8th.
Peak audience (18-49) → Q1: 1,062,000 (and about 0.32 on 18-49)
Death Triangle vs Best Friends & Orange Cassidy
Many thanks to Brandon Thurston for this quarterly data.
As you can imagine, the resumption of the NBA, a busy NXT show and an unusual time slot (mainly that point) made the numbers for this week's episode of Dynamite fall well. Indeed, the show was exceptionally moved to Tuesday not because of the NBA but because of the MLB whose playoffs TBS was broadcasting on Wednesday.
The audience left as the episode went on with a constant decrease (except for the passage between MJF and William Regal). The show is still 8th on cable which is a good thing. Dynamite will find its standards next Wednesday, against the NBA. It will be at this moment that we will really have to pay attention to the ratings because the NBA is here for many months and AEW proved last year that the show could even finish ahead of Basketball.
Beyond the direct and indirect competition, this also shows the danger of changing a program from its usual place while a date is created with the ratings. Nothing serious, Dynamite is back in its usual slot as of this week, but it puts some aspects of the media metrics into perspective.
Ratings Smackdown (21th October) :
Ratings : 2 231 000 (-1,89 %) & 0.52 sur les 18-49 [-0.02]
The blue show has been maintaining its pace around 2,200,000 viewers for a few weeks now. A good cruising pace that can please FOX and WWE (even if we would like to symbolically get closer to 2,500,000 viewers), although we can note a slight drop in the 18-49 demographic.
The show was once again facing the MLB broadcast on Fox Sports which once again recorded really good scores (4,881,000 & 1.12) as well as an NBA game on ESPN (1,409,000 & 0.47).
A busy episode next week with the return of Roman Reigns due to the fact that the next episode will be aired on a subsidiary channel of the FOX group : FS1 because of big sports programs. We save some assets for next week where the numbers will drop a lot.
Ratings AEW Rampage (21th October) :
Ratings : 480 000 (+4,80 %) & 0.13 sur les 18-49 [-0.04]
Cable Pos : 24th.
P2+ ratings going up but demographics going down again. Expected variations for a rather classic episode of Rampage that also faced the MLB broadcast on Fox Sports and another NBA game that started at 10:05 PM and recorded an audience of 1,913,000 with 0.66 in the 18-49 demographic.
A complicated context for Rampage with the recurring problems that are cited every week even if a slight positive trend can be seen timidly on the overall audience of the show (which is not the case for the demographics).
With the NBA making a comeback, it's a new program that will face Rampage on Fridays, it will be interesting to see if any decisions will be made to inflate the shows cards a bit during the NBA regular season or if they'll just sit back and hope it goes away.
For more updates on WWE and AEW TV ratings, please follow Lariate Wrestle on Twitter @Lariate_Wrestle.
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