AEW and NXT nearly tied in rating, but AEW continues to dominate in the demo, key metrics, 7 day viewership updates

AEW Dynamite, as usual, outdrew NXT on USA in total live and same-night viewership on Oct. 21 by a 753,000 to 644,00. That’s a lead of 109,000, the lowest in a head-to-head match-up since July 29. The prior five week average was 154,000. AEW drew a 0.51 cable rating compared to 0.50 for NXT, a reflection of nearly as many TV sets tuned into the show, but fewer viewers per TV.

AEW was down from their five-week average of 837,000, down 86,000.

NXT was down from their five-week averarge of 683,000, down 39,000.

AEW dominated in the key demos, as usual, while NXT skewed older in viewership. AEW drew a 0.30 rating in the 18-49 demo compared to NXT’s 0.16 rating, nearly a two-to-one average in the demo networks and advertisers pay the most attention to. In the young male demo, AEW also had a two-to-one lead 0.14 to 0.07 among men 18-34 and 0.39 to 0.19 among men 18-49.

In the 18-49 demo rankings, AEW finished no. 13 among all cable shows, with 11 of the 12 higher ranked shows being from CNN, MSNBC or Fox News. Only Real Housewives of OC on Bravo topped Dynamite among all non-news programming on cable. NXT tied for no. 50 with several other shows.

We have updated 7-day viewership totals for Sept. 30 and Oct. 7. AEW dropped below 1 million seven-day viewers on Oct. 7 (958,000), ending a streak of six weeks drawing over a million. The Sept. 30 Dynamite drew 1.082 million.

NXT’s Oct. 7 episode drew 774,000 after seven days, down from 852,000 the week before. The viewership totals do not include WWE Network viewers; NXT becomes available on WWE Network 24 hours after its USA Network premiere. The average viewership lead for the last four 7-day totals for AEW is 226,000, but WWE Network views in the U.S. of NXT close that gap, but we don’t know by how much. Bottom line, both shows are seen by nearly as many people, but AEW has an edge in total viewers and a big meaningful edge in key targeted demographics.

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