AEW Collision Ratings Report (9/2): Viewership drops to lowest of series history by far up against Payback and College Football, updated 7-day totals

Last Saturday’s episode of AEW Collision on TNT (9/2) averaged 345,000 viewers, down over 200,000 viewers from the prior week. Collision went up against the WWE Payback premium live event on Peacock plus a big college football game. It’s easily the lowest viewership for the series so far. The first 11 weeks of the series averaged 573,000. The previous low viewership total was 417,000 on Aug. 5, which went up against WWE Summerslam.

The key 18-49 demo rating dropped to 0.11 from 0.16 week before. The prior 11 weeks averaged 0.20, so it drew barely over half the series average.

Collision finished tied for fourth overall on Saturday night in the 18-49 demo among cable shows. ESPN’s College Football game finished no. 1 with 0.30 demo rating (and 588,000 total viewers). College Football on FS1 finished no. 2 with a 0.14 rating (and 291,000 viewers). A Hallmark original movie on Hallmark Channel finished no. 3 with a 0.11 rating, essentially tied with Collision, but Collision drew 4,000 fewer viewers in that demo (144,000 compared to 148,000), thus the tie goes to Hallmark Channel.

College Football on broadcast network CBS finished no. 1 for the day with a 0.32 demo rating (and 1.425 million total viewers).

A movie on TBS finished sixth with a 0.10 demo rating and 213,000 total viewers, which shows roughly what a rerun of a sitcom on TNT”s sister channel drew at the same time – a similar demo rating and 132,000 fewer viewers.

A drop this week in viewership and demo rating was expected, but the severity of the drop was not known. This would seem to be the lowest level AEW Collision will reach as long as the show is presented as an equal to Dynamite in terms of star power and storyline emphasis, rather than a two hour extension of what AEW Rampage has become.

The impact of the loss of C.M. Punk as a centerpiece main event act on the show has yet to register. In theory, anyone who had heard of Punk being fired would have had incentive to tune in Saturday to see how it was handled. The real effect of Punk’s departure, in theory, will begin to fully felt starting next week, although AEW will continue to face stiff competition from college football for several months.

We have updated 7-day viewership totals for Collision.

• Aug. 19 – 597,000 viewers (up 115,000 from 482,000 first-night viewership)
• Aug. 12 – 600,000 viewers (up 124,000 from 476,000 first-night viewership)
• Aug. 5 – 568,000 viewers (up 151,000 from 417,000 first-night viewership)

Notable is that the 7-day viewership increase was considerably higher for the episode that went up against Summerslam, so the 7-day total for this past Saturday’s Collision likely will also have higher delayed viewership as those who watched the WWE PLE live catch up on Collision in the following days.

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