More on AEW & NXT Week 95 Viewership – July 27 & 28, 2021

Jul 31, 2021

More on WWE NXT Viewership for July 27

The July 27th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer large sizable declines in both overall viewership and key demographic ratings. This week’s episode was notable for airing on SyFy instead of USA Network due to USA Network’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games commitments.

NXT drew 520,000 viewers and a 0.12 key demographic rating on USA Network. NXT’s key demographic rating for that night is currently not known.

The quarter-hour breakdowns for this week’s NXT show were not available in this week’s issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Dave Meltzer reported that this week’s NXT show drew the lowest ever overall viewership in series history since the move to USA Network. Meltzer reported that this was mainly due to a combo of stiff sports competition from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and the move to the weaker SyFy channel for this week’s show.

In regards to head-to-head competition, the Tokyo Olympic Games drew 14,263,000 viewers on NBC.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 150,000 viewers. All four of NXT’s key demographic groups decreased with the biggest being their Females 18-34 group at 56.3% lower than last week’s show.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was down 26.4% in overall viewership and down 35.1% in key demographic viewership.

In regards to the quarter-hours, only the first and last quarters were revealed in this week’s Newsletter issue. NXT reportedly started off with around 535,000 viewers and had around 500,000 viewers for their main event quarter.

More on AEW Dynamite Viewership for July 28

The July 28th episode of AEW Dynamite saw AEW suffer a small decline in overall viewership but gained a slight increase in key demographic ratings. This week’s show was notable for being the Fight for the Fallen 2021 themed special.

AEW drew 1,108,000 viewers and a 0.45 key demographic rating on TNT. AEW’s key demographic ranking for this week’s show was 1st place.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that despite the small decline in viewership, this week’s show generated the fourth highest overall viewership in Dynamite history and the highest key demographic rating of 2021. Meltzer reported that one reason for Dynamite’s decline likely was due to issues with the feed of the show on DirectTV that lasted for around four to five minutes very late into the first hour. Meltzer also reported that AEW also had to deal with a much weaker than usual lead-in programming viewership on TNT, which was down 44% compared to last week.

In regards to head-to-head competition, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games drew 11,011,000 viewers on NBC.

In terms of key demographic viewership, AEW had 582,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest increase was with their Females 18-34 group at 30.5% higher than last week’s show. AEW’s biggest decrease was with their Males 35-49 group at 11.4% lower than last week’s show. Meltzer reported that AEW’s Females 18-34 viewership managed to top both this week’s RAW and last week’s SmackDown. AEW reportedly had 77,000 viewers, this past Monday’s RAW had 75,000 viewers, and the prior week’s SmackDown had 74,000 viewers. AEW reportedly also came close in terms of Males 35-49 viewership with 271,000 viewers compared to 292,000 viewers for RAW and 285,000 viewers for SmackDown.

In terms of yearly comparisons, AEW was up 43.3% in overall viewership and up 47.7% in key demographic viewership.

AEW Dynamite started off with around 1,153,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Labor of Jericho No Rules match of Chris Jericho vs. Nick Gage which gained 93,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest decline of the night was the FTR vs. Santana & Ortiz match, the Britt Baker backstage interview segment, and the Tony Schiavone “First Dance” Rampage show in Chicago announcement which lost 265,000 viewers. This reportedly was the quarter where feed issues with the show negatively affected DirectTV viewers as one of the reasons for the larger than usual quarter decline for an AEW show.