AEW Dynamite Ratings Drop As NBA Basketball Returns To Wednesday Nights

Last week, the viewership of AEW's flagship TV show, "Dynamite," rebounded in a big way, posting its best Nielsen ratings since October. That was thanks, presumably, to a lack of NBA basketball competition. This past Wednesday, however, the NBA was back opposite "Dynamite" on ESPN, and it took a big bite out of the viewership of the AEW show's live and west coast premiere broadcasts. According to reporting from Wrestlenomics and ShowBuzz Daily, the March 1 "go-home" show for this Sunday's Revolution pay-per-view event averaged 833,000 total viewers, approximately 352,000 of which were in the vaunted "key demo" most valued by advertisers, adults aged 18 to 49. The latter figure translated to a 0.27 P18-49 rating, placing "Dynamite" third in ShowBuzz Daily's rankings of Wednesday's top 150 cable originals.

The total viewers figure represented a 19 percent drop from the prior week, while the key demo dropped 22 percent. In the analysis of the ratings compared to the median of the prior four weeks on the Wrestlenomics Patreon page, "Dynamite" was down seven percent in total viewers and 11 percent in the key demo. Amongst the other median comparisons tracked by Wrestlenomics, Wednesday's show showed its strongest gains in female viewers aged 12 to 34 with an eight percent increase. Adults aged 35 to 49, 25 to 54, and 50+ saw smaller percentage gains at one percent, three percent, and three percent again, respectively. By far the biggest percentage drop over the median, perhaps unsurprisingly given the NBA competition, came in adults aged 18 to 34, where the March 1 show declined by 27 percent.