More on AEW vs. NXT Week 71 Viewership

The February 10th episodes of AEW Dynamite and WWENXT saw both shows decline by a sizeable amount in viewership and key demographic rankings. AEW continued their advantage over NXT in regards of key demographic viewership.

AEW drew 741,000 viewers and a #21 ranking in the 18-49 demographic while NXT drew 558,000 and a #62 ranking in the 18-49 demographic.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that very stiff competition from news programming over the second Impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump was the main reason for the decline in numbers for both shows. Of the Top 20 shows for the night, news programming dominated with nineteen spots taken. In regards to non-news programming, Meltzer reported that AEW beat both the NBA and NHL’s games that night and was ranked second behind The Challenge: Double Agents on MTV in key demographic rankings.

In terms of key demographic viewership, AEW reportedly had 376,000 viewers while NXT had 159,000 viewers, including those generated from its overrun. Meltzer reported that AEW skewed younger than last week’s show and was the fifth youngest for the week for sports programming, behind one NBA game on TNT and three English Premier League games on NBCSN.

In terms of key demographic breakdowns, AEW doubled NXT in viewership in every key demographic group with the exception of the Males 18-34 group, which was more than quadrupled at 71,000 viewers versus 17,000 viewers for NXT. AEW’s sole increase was with their Males 18-34 group at 9.2% higher and their biggest decrease was with their Females 35-49 group at 15.5% lower than last week’s show. All four of NXT’s key demographic groups were down with the biggest decline being their Females 35-49 group at 21.4% lower than last week’s show.

In terms of the main event quarter, AEW reportedly had 692,000 for overall viewership and 335,000 for key demographic viewership. NXT reportedly had 536,000 for overall viewership and 164,000 for key demographic viewership.

In terms of yearly comparisons, AEW was down 9.2% in overall viewership and down 3.3% in key demographic viewership while NXT was down 26.3% in overall viewership and down 50% in key demographic viewership.

AEW Dynamite started off with around 860,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Kip Sabian & Penelope Ford wedding recap segment, the Inner Circle promo segment, and the Chris Jericho & MJF vs. The Acclaimed match which gained 59,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest decline of the night was the Jon Moxley promo segment, MJF & Sammy Guevara segment, and the beginning of Cody Rhodes & Lee Johnson vs. Peter Avalon & Cezar Bononi match which lost 144,000 viewers.

WWE NXT started off with around 499,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Mercedes Martinez vignette segment, the Xia Li vs. Kora Jade match and post-match stuff, and the Scarlett Bordeaux & William Regal segment which gained 55,000 viewers. NXT’s biggest decline of the night was the KUSHIDA vs. Austin Theory match and the Toni Storm vignette segment which lost 33,000 viewers. NXT’s overrun gained an additional 41,000 viewers to end the night. Meltzer reported that both NXT’s first quarter and overrun drew the least viewers ever since the move to USA Network.