Posted in: AEW, Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: aew, dynamite, NXT, ratings, wednesday night wars, wwe

AEW Dynamite Scores Decisive Ratings and Viewership Victory Over NXT

Published Thu, 23 Jul 2020 16:13:07 -0500

Last updated Thu, 23 Jul 2020 16:13:09 -0500

AEW Dynamite scored another victory over NXT in the Wednesday Night Wars this week, increasing ratings and viewership as WWE NXT fell in viewership. AEW was ranked 5th for the night on cable in the key 18-49 demographic, while NXT was ranked 35th. Neither show advertised a special episode title or world championship match, though both did promise exciting surprises.

The Demo God smiled upon AEW Dynamite last night as ratings and viewership increased.

AEW Dynamite Has a Very Good Night

AEW Dynamite scored a .32 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 845,000 total viewers, according to Showbuzz Daily. That's up from a .29 rating last week with 788,000 viewers. The big tease for last night's episode was which independent wrestling star would show up to challenge Cody Rhodes for the TNT Championship open challenge. It ended up being Eddie Kingston for the opening match, and Dynamite kept firing on all cylinders with one of the best episodes ever and definitely the best one of the pandemic era.

NXT… Not So Much

That was more than enough to overcome NXT, which advertised a special announcement from William Regal which many people correctly speculated would be about Keith Lee giving up the North American Championship now that he's also the NXT World Champion. NXT fell in viewership, scoring a .17 in the 18-49 demographic with 615,000 total viewers. Last week, NXT had 633,000 overall viewers. The rating was up, however, from last week's .14 and the show rose from 49th place to 35th place for the night on cable in the demo.

The Bottom Line 'Cause Chad Said So

What can I say? The Chadster can admit when his favorite show takes a loss. Yes, it's true that, once again, AEW Dynamite cheated by putting on an exciting show that people wanted to see even when it wasn't supposed to be one of those "ppv-quality" nights. Yes, okay, it made me pretty mad when I first saw the ratings. And yes, I might have snapped at Keighleyanne and now she's not speaking to me. But she should know that the Wednesday ratings are very important to me by now, so if anything, it's really her fault. Or maybe it's AEW's fault. The only person whose fault it definitely isn't is me.

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