More on AEW vs. NXT Week 65 & 66 Viewership

Jan 9, 2021

More on AEW vs. NXT Week 65 Viewership

The December 30th episodes of AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT saw Dynamite draw one of their highest viewership of 2020 while NXT drew one of its lowest ever viewership on USA Network. AEW continued their advantage over NXT in regards to key demographic viewership. AEW Dynamite was held as a special tribute episode to the late Brodie Lee.

AEW drew 977,000 viewers and a #4 ranking in the 18-49 demographic while NXT drew 586,000 and a #58 ranking in the 18-49 demographic.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that in terms of key demographic viewership, AEW had 524,000 while NXT had 161,000. In terms of head-to-head competition, NXT had 583,000 for overall viewership and 158,000 for key demographic viewership. NXT’s 0.12 rating for their key demographic was the lowest ever for a show since the move to the USA Network. AEW’s show reportedly skewed as the sixth youngest for a sports show for that week, behind three NBA games and two English Premier League soccer games.

In terms of key demographic breakdowns, AEW reportedly more than doubled NXT in every key demographic group with the largest gap being with the Males 18-34 group at a 5-to-1 advantage. AEW’s biggest gain was with Males 18-34 group at 100% higher and their biggest decline was with Females 18-34 group at 3.4% lower than the previous week’s show. All four of NXT’s key demographic groups declined for the week with the biggest being Males 35-49 group at 35.8% lower compared to the previous week’s show.

In terms of yearly comparisons, AEW was 1% higher in overall viewership and 12.2% higher in key demographic viewership compared to the same week last year. NXT was 6.9% higher in overall viewership but 20% lower in key demographic viewership compared to the same week last year.

In regards to the one million viewership mark, AEW reportedly hit over one million viewers in three of their eight quarter hours, which were the first two quarters and the main event quarter. In regards to the main event quarters, AEW had 1,005,000 viewers while NXT had 539,000 viewers.

AEW Dynamite started off with around 1,067,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Cody Rhodes, Orange Cassidy, & 10 vs. Team Taz match which gained 64,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest decline of the night was the bulk of the Lance Archer & Dark Order vs. The Butcher, The Blade, & Eddie Kingston match and Brodie Lee tribute interview segments which lost 84,000 viewers.

WWE NXT started off with around 666,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Kyle O’Reilly & Finn Balor promo and Karrion Kross & Damian Priest brawl segment and the Rhea Ripley vs. Raquel Gonzalez vignette segment which gained 41,000 viewers. NXT’s biggest decline was the Breezango vs. Grizzled Young Veterans match which lost 93,000 viewers. NXT’s overrun gained an additional 128,000 viewers to end the night.

More on AEW vs. NXT Week 66 Viewership

The January 6th episodes of AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT saw AEW decline by a very sizable amount in overall viewers while NXT gained a sizable amount of viewers. AEW continued their advantage over NXT in regards of key demographic viewership.

AEW drew 662,000 viewers and a #48 ranking in the 18-49 demographic while NXT drew 641,000 and a #68 ranking in the 18-49 demographic.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reason for AEW’s large declines in viewership and rankings and NXT’s decline in rankings was due to very stiff competition from news coverage of the Pro-Trump mob insurrection incident at the United States Capitol. The Top 30 shows for the night were all news related programs while the highest non-news related show was a NBA game at #33. Of the Top 50 shows, only five were non-news programs.

Due to the New Year’s holiday period and NXT not charting in the Top 50, detailed breakdowns were not available in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

In terms of key demographic viewership, AEW had 329,000 viewers while NXT had 204,000 viewers.

In terms of key demographic breakdowns, all four of AEW’s key demographic groups declined for the week with the biggest being Females 18-34 group at 55.8% lower than last week’s show. Only two of NXT’s key demographic groups were higher for the week with the biggest being Males 35-49 group at 45.3% higher and their biggest decline being Females 18-34 at 33.3% lower than last week’s show.