More on AEW & NXT Week 98 Viewership – August 17 & 18, 2021, Week 97 Update, AEW Rampage Debut

Aug 21, 2021

AEW & NXT Week 97 Viewership Update

As noted the before, the August 10th episode of WWE NXT drew 751,000 viewers and a 0.19 key demographic rating on USA Network while the August 11th episode of AEW Dynamite drew 979,000 viewers and a 0.35 key demographic rating on TNT.

This week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter provided more details for that week’s shows.

In regards to NXT, Dave Meltzer reported that all four of NXT’s key demographic groups increased for NXT’s show that week with the biggest being their Males 18-34 group at 255% higher than the prior week’s show.

WWE NXT show that week started off with around 673,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly face-to-face promo segment and the Timothy Thatcher & Tommaso Ciampa backstage interview segment which gained 73,000 viewers. NXT’s biggest decline of the night was the Imperium & MSK interview segment, the Odyssey Jones vs. Trey Baxter match, and the William Regal promo segment which lost 46,000 viewers. NXT’s overrun gained an additional 36,000 viewers to end the night.

In regards to AEW, Meltzer reported that despite the overall viewership decline for that week’s show, AEW managed to hit the one million viewers milestone twice during their show, which was their sixth (1,023,000) and eighth (1,056,000) quarters. AEW’s sole key demographic group increase was their Males 18-34 group at 17.3% higher than the prior week’s show. AEW’s biggest decrease was their Females 35-49 group at 48.2% lower than the prior week’s show.

AEW Dynamite show that week started off with around 892,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the latter half of the Elite vs. Dante Martin & Sydal Brothers tag team match, the Don Callis, Elite, and Christian Cage post-match promo segment, and the Malakai Black video promo segment which gained 72,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest decline of the night was the Miro video promo and the Darby Allin vs. Daniel Garcia match which lost 31,000 viewers.

More on WWE NXT Viewership for August 17th

The August 17th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer a large drop in both overall viewership and key demographic ratings.

NXT drew 654,000 viewers and a 0.15 key demographic rating on USA Network. NXT’s key demographic ranking for that night was 31st place.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s large overall viewership drop this week was due to very stiff competition from news programming and a much larger than usual drop in their overall female viewership.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 200,000 viewers. All four of NXT’s key demographic groups decreased or were the same as last week’s show. NXT’s biggest decrease was with their Females 18-34 group at 44.1% lower than last week’s show.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was down 23.3% in overall viewership and down 35.9% in key demographic viewership.

WWE NXT started off with around 643,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the NXT Tag Team Championship match of MSK vs. Imperium and post-match brawl with WALTER & Ilja Dragunov which gained 13,000 viewers. NXT’s biggest decline of the night was the latter half of the Carmelo Hayes vs. Duke Hudson match and the Hayes & Odyssey Jones post-match interview segment which lost 45,000 viewers. NXT’s overrun gained an additional 7,000 viewers to end the night. Meltzer reported that this week’s overrun managed to actually lose viewers in the key demographic for possibly the first time ever and barely got any boost from viewers tuning in for the next show that night on USA Network.

More on AEW Dynamite Viewership for August 18th

The August 18th episode of AEW Dynamite saw AEW suffer a small decline in overall viewership.

AEW drew 975,000 viewers and a 0.35 key demographic rating on TNT. AEW’s key demographic ranking for this week’s show was 4th place.

Dave Meltzer reported that the main reasons for AEW’s decline in overall viewership this week were due to very stiff competition from news programming and a much lower than usual overall female key demographic viewership. Meltzer reported that AEW’s Females 12-34 group was ranked ninth for the night while their overall Females 18-49 group was ranked twenty-fourth for the night.

In terms of one million viewership milestones, Meltzer reported that two of AEW’s eight quarters finished with over one million viewers. They were the sixth quarter at 1,003,000 viewers and the seventh quarter at 1,010,000 viewers.

In terms of key demographic viewership, AEW had 447,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest increase was their Females 35-49 group at 29.3% higher than last week’s show. AEW’s biggest decrease was with their Females 18-34 group at 22.1% lower than last week’s show.

In terms of yearly comparisons, AEW was up 29.1% in overall viewership and 9.8% in key demographic viewership.

AEW Dynamite started off with around 996,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Elite interview segment, the Taz & Ricky Starks promo segment, the Death Triangle, Andrade, & Chavo Guerrero backstage interview segment, and the Thunder Rosa vs. Penelope Ford match which gained 49,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest decline of the night was the Sammy Guevara vs. Shawn Spears match which lost 44,000 viewers.

More on AEW Rampage Viewership for August 13th

The August 13th episode of AEW Rampage was notable for being the debut episode for the series.

AEW Rampage drew 740,000 viewers and a 0.30 key demographic rating on TNT. AEW’s key demographic ranking for this week’s show was 3rd place.

Dave Meltzer reported that Rampage’s debut episode only trailed behind two NFL pre-season games on the NFL Network for key demographic ratings that night. Meltzer reported that Rampage’s debut episode was around 30% higher in overall viewership and 113% higher in key demographic viewership than what TNT had been averaging for their 10PM timeslot on Fridays.

In terms of key demographic viewership, AEW drew 394,000 viewers.

AEW Rampage started off with around 729,000 viewers and had 761,000 viewers for its second quarter, 715,000 viewers for its third quarter, and 753,000 viewers for its main event quarter featuring the AEW Women’s Championship match of Red Velvet vs Britt Baker.