More on AEW & NXT Week 96 Viewership – August 3 & 4, 2021

Aug 7, 2021

Additional Notes on AEW & NXT Week 95 Viewership

As noted before, the July 27th episode of WWE NXT drew 520,000 viewers and a 0.12 key demographic rating on USA Network while the July 28th episode of AEW Dynamite drew 1,108,000 viewers and a 0.45 key demographic rating on TNT. NXT’s show was notable for airing on SyFy due USA Network’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games commitments and AEW’s show was notable for being the Fight for the Fallen 2021 themed episode.

This week’s issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter provided more details for both shows.

Dave Meltzer reported that week’s episode of NXT had a key demographic ranking of 38th place for the night. In regards to head-to-head sports competition, the Olympic Games drew 14,006,000 viewers on NBC, 1,114,000 viewers on NBCSN, and 865,000 viewers on USA Network.

In regards to AEW’s show, Meltzer reported that its peak overall viewership and key demographic viewership both occurred several minutes into the first quarter, which featured the 10-Man tag team match of The Elite vs. Hangman Page & Dark Order. AEW’s peak was around 1,409,000 for overall viewership and 778,000 for key demographic viewers. AEW’s bottom for overall viewership was around 800,000 which occurred during the FTR vs. Santana & Ortiz tag team match. This match was affected by DirectTV’s feed outage, which impacted around 16% of AEW’s weekly overall viewership.

More on WWE NXT Viewership for August 3rd

The August 3rd episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer a small decline in key demographic ratings. This week’s episode was notable for being the second and final week in a row that NXT aired on SyFy due to USA Network’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games commitments.

NXT drew 520,000 viewers and a 0.10 key demographic rating on USA Network. NXT’s key demographic rating for that night is currently not known.

Dave Meltzer reported that this week’s NXT show drew its lowest ever key demographic rating in series history since the move to the USA Network.

In regards to head-to-head competition, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games drew 12,207,000 viewers on NBC.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 135,000 viewers. NXT’s sole increase was their Females 35-49 group at 3.4% higher than last week’s show. NXT’s biggest decrease was their Males 18-34 group at 20% lower than last week’s show.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was down 30.9% in overall viewership and down 50% in key demographic viewership.

WWE NXT started off with around 509,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Robert Stone, Franky Monet, & Jessi Kamea backstage interview segment and the start of the Roderick Strong vs. Bobby Fish match which gained 28,000 viewers. NXT’s biggest decline of the night was the Io Shirai & Zoey Stark sushi restaurant segment, the Indi Hartwell backstage interview segment, the Samoa Joe & Karrion Kross segment, and the Walter vs. Ilja Dragunov NXT UK Championship match hype video package which lost 17,000 viewers. NXT’s overrun gained an additional 79,000 viewers to end the night.

More on AEW Dynamite Viewership for August 4th

The August 4th 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 AEW Homecoming themed special.

AEW drew 1,102,000 viewers and a 0.46 key demographic rating on TNT. AEW’s key demographic ranking for this week’s show was 2nd place.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the Olympic Games on USA Network beat out AEW’s show by only around 5,000 for the top key demographic rankings spot. Meltzer reported that this week’s show started off at record type levels for viewership before falling down to normal levels after around 30 minutes. Meltzer also reported that for a second week in a row, DirectTV had an outage with their feed of the show but this time it only lasted for a little over one minute.

In regards to head-to-head competition, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games drew 9,138,000 viewers on NBC.

In terms of key demographic viewership, AEW had 593,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest increase was with their Males 35-49 group at 10.1% higher than last week’s show. AEW’s biggest decrease was with their Males 18-34 group at 15.5% lower than last week’s show. Meltzer reported that AEW’s Females 18-34 viewership fell shy of tying this past Monday’s WWE RAW by around 1,000 viewers. AEW had 84,000 viewers while RAW had 85,000 viewers. Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston reported that AEW’s Males 35-49 viewership managed to top last week’s WWE Friday Night SmackDown show. AEW reportedly had 300,000 viewers while the prior week’s SmackDown had 273,000 viewers.

In terms of yearly comparisons, AEW was up 22.3% in overall viewership and up 27.8% in key demographic viewership.

AEW Dynamite started off with around 1,206,000 viewers and their biggest gain of the night was the Malakai Black vs. Cody Rhodes match and post-match stuff which gained 74,000 viewers. AEW’s biggest decline of the night was the bulk of the Jon Moxley, Eddie Kingston, & Darby Allin vs. 2.0 & Daniel Garcia match, the Ricky Starks & Brian Cage feud video package, and The Elite backstage promo segment which lost 140,000 viewers.