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Here we go again with the weekly look at all of the ratings from the major 4 US Wrestling shows. As usual all numbers are from Showbuzz Daily but the graphs and analysis are all my own.
AEW dropped slightly in both total viewers and the P18-49 demo this week. With a 9% drop in total viewers (845k to 787k) and a 6% drop in the demo (0.32 to 0.3). I think these are still encouraging numbers for what was generally regarded as a poor show, and probably also shows the gradual wear down of viewers that'll happen after so many big shows back-to-back. They're also matching Raw in a few of the more specific demos, with their 0.15 in F12-34 getting them a tie, for the second week running. They're also approaching them in P18-34, they scored a 0.19 this week which is only 0.01 behind Raw last week. Achieving all of these close numbers despite facing direct wrestling competition is very impressive.
This was a really good week for NXT after 2 pretty disappointing numbers. They jumped 15% in total viewers (615k to 707k) and 6% (0.17 to 0.18) in P18-49. All of this despite a show with little hype and no major matches is a pretty good sign heading into sports season where the competition is going to be high. NXT alone isn't approaching any Raw numbers, but the Wednesday night combined totals are looking really good currently, with wins in F18-49, P18-34, and F12-34, and a tie in P18-49. Given Raw's status as the major wrestling show for 25 years, these are really good numbers for the 2 newcomers to hit.
Raw had another bad week. While the P18-49 number did rise slightly (0.46 to a 0.48), the total viewers dropped to a new second worst rating, from 1.63 million to 1.62 million. In better news for them, M18-49 rose 6% (0.6 to 0.64) and the P18-34 rose 26% (0.2 to 0.26). But what's really noteable is the drop throughout the show, especially for the third hour. Setting a new all-time low record for a single hour of Raw, the third hour only drew 1.463 million viewers, and a 0.57 in P18-49. This drop was seen across the board but most obviously in F12-34, who started the show at a 0.19 but dropped over 50% to a 0.08 by the end.
Smackdown had an okay week, rising 78k viewers to 1,971,000, though this number does include the Baseball numbers that were on at the same time. The P18-49 also rose back to its normal (at least for the pandemic) 0.5. They also rose back to a 0.25 in the P18-34 demo. These numbers aren't particularly good, especially in rerun season, but they mostly seem to have stabilised around 1.8 million viewers and regularly win the night on Network TV so it's not a major concern yet.
Anyway, on with the numbers for you to see how all the shows are shaping up.