AEW Dynamite Ratings Slide, All Access Premiere Can't Keep Audience

Wednesday night was a big one for AEW, featuring the in-ring return of Adam Cole on "Dynamite" and the premiere of the "AEW All Access" reality show that immediately followed. It followed some very good ratings news last week. That positive momentum, however, did not carry over to this week.

According to ShowBuzz Daily and Wrestlenomics, Dynamite averaged 833,000 viewers (down 13 percent from last week) across its two hours in the Nielsen ratings, approximately 365,000 of which were in the "key demo" most valued by advertisers, adults aged 18 to 49 (down 16 percent from last week). The latter number translates to a 0.28 rating in the P18-49 demo, which was good enough for fourth place in ShowBuzz Daily's ranking of the day's cable originals. The two NBA games on ESPN and Bravo's "Vanderpump Rules" were the only shows to finish ahead of "Dynamite" on cable. Relative to the median of the previous four weeks' ratings tracked on a rolling basis by the Wrestlenomics Patreon page, the March 30 "Dynamite" showed its best growth in women aged 18 to 49 with an 11 percent increase. In the opposite direction, adults aged 35 to 49 fared the worst with a six percent drop.

As for "All Access," it did not hold its lead-in from "Dynamite" well at all, averaging 328,000 viewers across its 60 minutes, approximately 145,000 of which were in the P18-49 demo for a 0.11 rating, which earned it 30th place for the day among Wednesday's cable originals. Both figures align with the last new episode of an AEW reality show, the final episode of "Rhodes to the Top" in October 2021, although that aired on a Saturday night instead of being the lead-out for "Dynamite."