More on AEW vs. NXT Week 61 & 62 Viewership, Impact Viewership Update

Dec 12, 2020

AEW vs. NXT Week 61 Viewership Update

As noted before, the December 2nd episodes of AEW Dyanmite and WWE NXT resulted in Dynamite generating around 913,000 viewers on TNT and tied for the #1 ranking in the 18-49 key demographic while NXT generated around 658,000 viewers on USA Network and a #56 ranking in the 18-49 key demographic.

This week’s issue of the Wresting Observer Newsletter provided more details for both shows that week.

Dave Meltzer reported that AEW had several moments during their “Winter is Coming” Dynamite special that hit 1 million and over in overall viewership. These were the last four minutes of the Dynamite Diamond Battle Royale match (1 million), the Young Bucks interview segment (1.1 million at its peak), the Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa brawl segment (1 million), and Sting’s debut appearance (1.05 million).

In terms of key demographic breakdowns, AEW’s biggest increase was with the Teenager group at 100% higher and their biggest decline was with the 50+ group at 10.3% lower than last week’s show. NXT’s biggest increase was with the Teenager group at 80% higher and their biggest decline was with the 18-34 group at 35.4% lower than last week’s show.

More on AEW vs. NXT Week 62 Viewership

The December 9th episodes of AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT saw AEW gain a sizeable increase in overall viewership and continued their advantage over NXT in the key demographic rankings. NXT’s December 9th show featured the fallout from this past Sunday’s NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2020 event.

AEW drew 995,000 viewers and a #2 ranking in the 18-49 demographic via a tie while NXT drew 659,000 and a #37 ranking in the 18-49 demographic.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that in terms of comparisons with WWE’s RAW and SmackDown shows, AEW was behind RAW for the Females Under 50 demographic at 220,000 viewers for AEW compared to 229,000 viewers for RAW. AEW reportedly tied last week’s episode of SmackDown in the Females 18-34 demographic group at 100,000 viewers each. AEW also reportedly beat RAW in Females 18-34 viewership but not in the Males 18-34 viewership.

Four of the eight quarter-hours for AEW’s show reportedly hit over 1 million overall viewers, which were the second, third, fourth, and fifth quarters. The highest quarter hour for AEW was the second quarter at 1,069,000 million viewers which featured Sting. For comparisons, NXT had 615,000 viewers for their second quarter.

In terms of key demographic viewership, Meltzer reported that AEW had 584,000 viewers while NXT had 217,000 viewers. AEW’s show also reportedly skewed younger than its usual average but was slightly older than last week’s show.

In terms of key demographic breakdowns, AEW reportedly managed to more than double NXT in every key demographic group. AEW’s largest gap was the Males 35-49 group at 260,000 viewers compared to 101,000 viewers for NXT.

In terms of the main event quarter-hours, AEW had 971,000 overall viewers and 563,000 key demographic viewers while NXT had 665,000 overall viewers and 225,000 key demographic viewers.

In terms of yearly comparisons, AEW was up 27.9% in overall viewership and up 60.7% in key demographic viewership. NXT was down 15.3% in overall viewership and down 29.2% in key demographic viewership.

AEW Dynamite started off with around 934,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Darby Allin vignette segment and the Sting and Cody Rhodes interview segment which gained 135,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest decline of the night was the ending of the Eddie Kingston, The Butcher, & The Blade vs. Lance Archer, Fenix, & Penta El Zero M match and post-match stuff which lost 84,000 viewers.

WWE NXT started off with around 782,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the ending of Grizzled Young Veterans vs. Ever-Rise vs. Imperium match, the WarGames recap video segment, and the Toni Storm and Io Shirai interview and brawl segment which gained 39,000 viewers. NXT’s biggest decline of the night was the Jake Atlas vs. Isaiah Scott match, the Tommaso Ciampa interview segment, and the bulk of the and Grizzled Young Veterans vs. Ever-Rise vs. Imperium match which lost 167,000 viewers.

More on Impact Wrestling’s Viewership for December 8th Show

As noted before, the December 8th episode of Impact Wrestling Impact! drew 221,000 viewers on AXS TV and a #96 ranking in the key demographic ratings. Both were up compared to the previous week’s episode of 166,000 viewers and a #121 ranking.

Dave Meltzer reported that Impact had around 98,000 viewers for the key demographic group, which was up by 77.8% compared to last week’s show. Impact’s overall viewership of 221,000 also reportedly broke the company’s all-time record for highest viewership for an episode on AXS TV, which was 207,000 viewers for its debut episode on the network.

In terms of viewership peaks, Impact’s second quarter was the highest for the night at 239,000 overall viewers. The main event interview segment with Don Callis and Kenny Omega reportedly drew 215,000 overall viewers but had the show’s highest peak for key demographic viewers at 111,000.

Meltzer reported that while Impact’s viewership usually skews as the oldest out of all the national wrestling television shows, this week’s episode skewed a lot younger than usual and was behind AEW for youngest average viewership age for the week.

In regards to viewership on other platforms, Meltzer reported that Impact’s show had around 750,000 combined viewers on YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook by December 10th. The Callis and Omega segment reportedly brought in an additional 904,000 viewers from social media giving it a total of around 1.67 million viewers.

Impact’s peak live viewership on Twitch was 55,396 viewers, which was at the end of the Callis and Omega interview segment. Impact also reportedly averaged around 42,953 live viewers for their show on the platform during its airing.