For the second time in a month, “WWE NXT” and “AEW Dynamite” went head-to-head Wednesday night, with “NXT” pre-empted by new network home The CW’s coverage of the 2024 United States general election. Last month, it was “Dynamite” switching nights, presenting their third consecutive “Title Tuesday” as a result of regular pre-emption by the Major League Baseball playoffs. Despite the branding and a decent helping of star power on the card, the ratings results were disastrous, with “Dynamite” recording its lowest overall viewership in history, as well as its worst showing in the key 18-49 demographic. This week, however, it was “NXT” airing away from its usual night — which makes the result of the ratings battle even more surprising.
According to Programming Insider, the November 6 episode “NXT” averaged an overall viewership of 619,000, which actually represents a 5% increase from their viewership last week, when they were in their usual time slot but up against Game 4 of the World Series. The show also earned a 0.17 in the key demo, a 2% increase from last week. More interesting is the fact that in both metrics, “NXT” came in higher than “Dynamite,” which averaged 523,000 total viewers and scored 0.16 in the key demo — a 17% and 16% drop, respectively, from the previous week, and “Dynamite’s” lowest numbers since June. Notably, “NXT’s” show took place at Philadelphia’s 2300 Arena, once the home of upstart hardcore promotion ECW, and paid tribute by featuring former ECW stars like Rob Van Dam, Dawn Marie, Nunzo, Rhyno, and a reunited Dudley Boyz.
Both shows peak early, only one recovers
Looking at the quarter-hour breakdowns published by Wrestlenomics, both “NXT” and “Dynamite” started strong, with the former peaking at 674,000 viewers in QH2 for the end of the opening match between Lola Vice and Jaida Parker, while the latter enjoyed its typically high QH1 performance (in part due to its strong lead-in, “The Big Bang Theory”) peaking at 666,000. In fact, “Dynamite” actually beat “NXT” in QH1 by 1,000 average viewers, but things largely went downhill from there; the show bottomed out with 455,000 average viewers in QH8 and only got a marginal amount back for the nine-minute overrun.
In contrast, “NXT” hit its nadir in QH6 with 563,000 average viewers — more than all but the first two quarter-hours of “Dynamite” — but rebounded reasonably from there, finishing with 625,000 average viewers in QH 8 for the 10-woman tag team main event pitting Fatal Influence, Cora Jade, and NXT Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez against the babyface super-team of Kelani Jordan, TNA Wrestling star Jordynne Grace, and “NXT’s” three high-profile international new recruits: Giulia, Zaria, and Stephanie Vaquer.
While “NXT” coming over to Wednesday night and beating “Dynamite” on its own turf is bound to raise some eyebrows, the material impact on AEW is likely to be negligible, as the company has already signed a major new broadcast deal with Warner Bros. Discovery and is rumored to be in talks with Fox about another one.
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