AEW Dynamite fields lowest viewership since June 2022

Wednesday night’s episode of All Elite Wrestling’s flagship ‘Dynamite’ fetched its lowest average viewership in over 16 months. The October 25, 2023, edition of AEW’s most-watched wrestling show averaged 774,000 viewers and scored a 0.24 rating in the key P18-49 demographic. Both Wrestlenomics and Sports TV Ratings reported the figure.

AEW Dynamite last night on TBS:
774,000 viewers
P18-49 rating: 0.24 pic.twitter.com/ER31l0Jrkd

— Wrestlenomics (@wrestlenomics) October 26, 2023

 

The figure is the lowest that the show has posted since June 2022. On June 15, 2022, Dynamite averaged 761,000 viewers that night.

Last week, the show saw an uptick in ratings. They averaged 901,000 viewers with a 0.31 P18-49 rating. They were up massively after they were preempted for a week because of the MLB Postseason. After they went to Tuesday for a night, ‘WWE NXT’ defeated them cleanly in a ‘head-to-head battle.’

But anybody expecting those numbers to be maintained were left disappointed on Thursday. The average viewership declined by roughly 14 percent.

Inside the numbers, the show also saw steep declines in viewership on Wednesday night. Dynamite is typically a show that starts hot in viewership, but it’s rarely maintained throughout the show. Their highest viewership is commonly seen right at the beginning of the 8-8:15 p.m. quarter-hour or around the middle.

Dynamite once again led off strong. They averaged 982,000 viewers in the 8-8:15 p.m. quarter-hour, according to Wrestlenomics’ Patreon. The 8:15-8:30 p.m. quarter was at 936,000. While that’s a drop, it was nothing steep. But that wasn’t the case after 8:30 passed by.

The 8:30-8:45 p.m. quarter featured wrestling legend Rob Van Dam and Hook, the son of ECW legend Taz; they wrestled the tag team of John Silver and Alex Reynolds. This match saw a massive drop in the audience. After averaging 932,000 in the previous quarter, they only averaged 752,000. That was a significant 20 percent drop in the audience, and the show never recovered.

The peak of the audience after that was 764,000 viewers from 9-9:15 p.m. Wrestling legend Ric Flair curiously appeared on the show as AEW founder Tony Khan’s “gift” to wrestling legend Sting, who announced plans to retire next Winter.

Drops of five percent and 11 percent later followed the show. Of course, the drop of 11 percent occurred during the show’s only women’s match. Ruby Soho tried and failed to defeat Women’s Champion Hikaru Shida. There was a post-match angle with future challenger Toni Storm, but they still faced a lack of interest from the TV audience.

(For what it’s worth, AEW still appears to be the only place struggling with this factor. Last week, WWE featured their women prominently throughout all of their shows, and this week, on NXT, there were five women’s matches on the broadcast. That included a title match between superstar Becky Lynch and up-and-comer Lyra Valkyria. So even while the competition stacks up the show that compares to AEW’s, even when they compete head-to-head… the women still aren’t given much. There were five women’s matches featuring ten women on NXT… and there were three women throughout AEW’s entire show)

AEW was challenged by ESPN’s coverage of two NBA games as the season began. But it’s fair to note that the game between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks started at 7:11 p.m. Eastern, while the Dallas Mavericks faced off with Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs, who tipped off at 9:54 p.m. Eastern.

So is it fair to say that the competition hurt the show? Especially considering that this show began like most Dynamites do in viewership? Over the last 12 weeks, the first quarter of Dynamite has averaged 928,583. So their number of 982K would surpass that this week.

So, you have to wonder: Was it basketball, or did viewers this week decide to tune in just for MJF and nothing else? He wrestled Juice Robinson to begin the show and then remained part of an angle that trickled all the way through to 8:30 p.m. Considering how minimal gains were, it’s not farfetched.

Nevertheless, AEW Dynamite ratings have been variable lately, and on Wednesday night, the cards didn’t fall in their favor.

[Data cited by Wrestlenomics]