More on AEW vs. NXT Week 62 & 63 Viewership, Impact Viewership Update

Dec 19, 2020

AEW vs. NXT Week 62 Viewership Update

As noted before, the December 9th episodes of AEW Dyanmite and WWE NXT resulted in Dynamite generating around 995,000 viewers on TNT and a #2 ranking in the 18-49 key demographic while NXT generated around 659,000 viewers on USA Network and a #37 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 seven segments that averaged more than 1 million viewers, which were the Shaquille O’Neal and Brandi Rhodes interview (1,161,000), the Dustin Rhodes vs. 10 match (1,129,000), the Cody Rhodes and Sting interview (1,097,000), the FTR vs. Varsity Blondes match (1,091,000), the Inner Circle segment (1,049,000), the Abadon vs. Tesha Price match (1,039,000), and the Kenny Omega & Don Callis interview (1,014,000).

NXT reportedly topped the 1 million viewership mark once, which was the first minute of their show at 1,125,000 viewers. NXT reportedly lost 210,000 viewers right afterwards. This first minute reportedly was the only time NXT topped AEW in terms of overall viewership for the night.

In terms of peak viewership, AEW’s peak for overall viewership was 1,220,000 during the Shaquille O’Neal interview segment while their peak for key demographic viewership was 695,000 during the Sting interview segment.

More on AEW vs. NXT Week 63 Viewership

The December 16th episodes of AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT saw AEW decline by a sizable amount in overall viewership while the opposite occurred for NXT. AEW continued their advantage over NXT in the key demographic rankings.

AEW drew 806,000 viewers and a #3 ranking in the 18-49 demographic while NXT drew 766,000 and a #34 ranking in the 18-49 demographic.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that all of AEW’s key demographic groups saw sizable declines this week with the largest being their Males 18-34 group at 51% lower than last week’s show. AEW also suffered a very large decline with their Teenagers group, especially male viewers.

While both of NXT’s 18-34 demographic groups suffered large declines, both of their 35-49 demographic groups gained in viewership with the largest being Females 35-49 at 28.6% higher than last week’s show.

In terms of key demographic viewership, Meltzer reported that AEW had 420,000 viewers while NXT had 250,000 viewers for head-to-head competition and 252,000 viewers when including NXT’s four-minute overrun.

In terms of quarter-hour breakdowns, AEW won every quarter for key demographic viewership but only four out of eight quarters for overall viewership, which were the first four quarters. NXT reportedly won all of the latter quarters for overall viewership.

In terms of yearly comparisons, AEW was up 18% in overall viewership and 28% in key demographic viewership. NXT was down 3.6% in overall viewership and 29.6% in key demographic viewership.

AEW Dynamite started off with around 1,010,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the SCU vs. The Acclaimed match and post-match stuff and the Top Flight interview segment which gained 20,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest decline of the night was the Inner Circle interview segment, the Cody & Brandi Rhodes Christmas video segment, and the beginning of Cody Rhodes vs. Angelico match which lost 184,000 viewers.

WWE NXT started off with around 743,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the latter half of the #1 Contendership for NXT Championship match of Kyle O’Reilly vs. Pete Dunne match which gained 101,000 viewers. NXT’s biggest decline of the night was the Rhea Ripley interview segment, the Xia Li & Boa segment, and the Blackheart vs. Indi Hartwell match and post-match stuff which lost 39,000 viewers. NXT’s overrun gained an additional 115,000 viewers to end the night.

More on Impact Wrestling’s Viewership for December 15th Show

As noted before, the December 15th episode of Impact Wrestling Impact! drew 177,000 viewers on AXS TV and a #143 ranking in key demographic ratings. Both were down compared to last week’s episode of 221,000 viewers and a #96 ranking.

Dave Meltzer reported that this week’s episode averaged 12,397 viewers during its airing on Twitch and peaked in live viewership at 14,663. Both were down compared to last week’s viewership numbers of 42,953 for the average and 55,396 for the peak on Twitch. Despite the declines, this week’s viewership on Twitch was still higher than what Impact had been averaging for weekly shows, which was between 800 to 2,500 viewers.