AEW and WWE Ratings Report: SmackDown does best number in months

The big news

WWE NXT fell to numbers more similar to what they were doing while running head to head with AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights after a month on Tuesdays. Similarly, Dynamite did it’s worst number in 18–49 since getting the night to themselves. WWE RAW was also down very slightly.

This week’s numbers

AEW Dynamite averaged 936,000 viewers, down 14.1% from last week. They were fifth on the cable charts with a 0.31 rating in the 18–49 demo, down 26.2% from last week. They were even in the 18–34 demo with last week so the drop in viewers was mainly from older fans. This was the lowest number in the demo since the April 7, which was the last week of the Monday Night Wars. It’s also the worst number they’ve done unopposed when considering the times when NXT was moved off of Wednesday nights in the past.

WWE NXT averaged 697,000 viewers, down 8.4% from last week. That’s the lowest for the show since March 31, which includes one week of head to head competition on Wednesday April 7. In the 18–49 demo, the show dropped all the way to 25th on the cable charts with a 0.17 rating. That’s down 5.6% from the previous week. It’s the lowest demo number since March 21st and is right about the level they were averaging in the demo when they were on Wednesdays.

WWE RAW on the USA Network on Monday May 10th averaged 1.817 million viewers, down 3% from last week. In the 18–49 demo, the show topped the cable charts on the night with a 0.53 rating. That’s identical to the previous week so the show skewed a little younger this week.

WWE SmackDown on FOX for May 7th averaged 2.282 million viewers. It was the only one of the four shows to increase their audience from the previous week, with a rise of 13.1%. This was a throwback themed episode so that probably helped as there was no marquee matches announced for the show. In the 18–49 demo, the show topped all of television on the night with a 0.65 rating, up 32.7% from the previous week. All three WWE shows skewed younger this week, which doesn’t often happen.

As shown in the chart below, the increases/decreases over the ten-week average are as follows:

AEW Dynamite was up .5.3% in viewers but down 6.1% in 18–49

WWE NXT was down 3.6% in viewers and 10.5% in 18–49

WWE RAW was down 1.4% in viewers and 5.4% in 18–49

WWE SmackDown was up 6.2% in viewers and 14% in 18–49

Year-over-year numbers

AEW Dynamite was up 43.1% in overall viewers and 34.8% in 18–49. Of course for Dynamite and NXT, these year over year comparisons aren’t really fair since they were running head to head last year. But comparing them against each other is still a good gauge of where they’re at.

WWE NXT was up 15.4% in viewers and 13.3% in 18–49. So clearly, AEW had benefited more from having the night to themselves and are probably also just hotter overall.

RAW was down 5.3% in viewers and 7% in 18–49. Both those drops are better than most shows on cable so they are borderline acceptable.

SmackDown was up 12.7% in viewers and 30% in 18–49. The latter number is huge under any circumstances.

Ratings extra

This will be the last in the series of segment by segment average viewers and viewers gained that have been published for the first quarter of 2021. This week, we will look at the 18–49 demo and the most viewers gained per segment. As a comparison, the highest gainers in overall viewers were as follows: Kip Sabian, Orange Cassidy, Adam Cole, Danny Burch, Penelope Ford, Chuck Taylor, Miro, Finn Balor, The Good Brothers and Kyle O’Reilly. Any differences here will help show who might be moving numbers among younger viewers as opposed to overall:

I’d like to encourage all of you to check out a podcast that airs on the Fight Game Media Network Patreon. Parker Klyn and I are co-hosting The Dynamite Show, a quick recap of AEW Dynamite. Parker also does the written Dynamite coverage for both this site and F4W Online, and this podcast is a nice companion to his work.

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