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As hysteria bears down on the world of wrestling TV ratings discourse in light of the latest Dynamite rating, I offer a few tools and notes to stay safe, or not.
How did Dynamite rank? Dynamite on Wednesday was #9 for the day among cable originals in P18-49.
- #1. College baseball at 7:48 pm on ESPN: 0.42
- #2. UEFA Euro at 11:42 am on FS1: 0.42
- #3. College baseball at 3:38 pm on ESPN: 0.30
- #4. Sportscenter at 6:54 pm on ESPN: 0.21
- #5. UEFA Euro at 8:43 am on FS1: 0.18
- #6. Expedition Unknown at 9:00 pm on Discovery: 0.18
- #7. Sportscenter at midnight on ESPN: 0.18
- #8. College baseball at 11:00 am on ESPN: 0.18
- #9. AEW Dynamite at 8:00 pm on TBS: 0.16
- #10. American Dad at 10:30 pm on Adult Swim: 0.15
What about The Big Bang Theory? The Big Bang Theory was not the lead-in for Dynamite this week, which is unusual. Instead, the film Black Panther was the lead-in on TBS, which had lower viewership than The Big Bang Theory regularly provides as the lead-in. The Big Bang Theory is one of the most highly-viewed rerun series on all of traditional TV and is often a strong lead-in for Dynamite, boosting the early quarter-hours of the AEW show. Last week, the final quarter-hour of The Big Bang Theory at 7:45 pm averaged 229,000 viewers aged 18 to 49, or a 0.17 P18-49 rating. This week, the last quarter-hour of Black Panther averaged 84,000 viewers in the demo, or a 0.06 P18-49 rating.
What were the lower ratings in Dynamite’s history? In terms of P18-49 viewership, Dynamite has never had a smaller P18-49 audience than this past Wednesday, a 0.16 P18-49 rating, or 213,000 viewers in the age group. That includes preemptions. Only two episodes, both preemptions had lower total viewership, on Jun. 4, 2021 and Jun. 11, 2021, both Fridays with 10:00 pm start times on TNT, when Dynamite averaged 462,000 and 487,000 viewers, respectively.
Wait, what does the P18-49 rating actually mean? It represents the percentage of viewers in the age group (18 to 49) who live in households that have televisions. That’s regardless of whether those television households have cable. Therefore, Nielsen data is telling us, 0.16% of all people in the U.S. aged 18 to 49 who live in homes with TVs (that denominator happens to 131,880,000 people) watched Dynamite on average (averaged by minute) throughout the entire broadcast. The number of people in the age group was 213,000, included in the 502,000 viewers the show averaged across all ages (or, well, ages 2 and up).
How close are NXT and Dynamite in terms of P18-49 rating? Excluding any preemption episodes (which would also excludes when Dynamite and NXT were head-to-head last year October 10), this is just the second time NXT was ahead of Dynamite in P18-49 viewership in the same week. NXT delivered a 0.26 P18-49 rating this week (341,000 viewers in the demo), its highest of the year. The only other time NXT had a bigger P18-49 audience than Dynamite in the same week was on Dec. 18, 2019, when the programs were head-to-head on Wednesday nights. Yes, that was the episode of Dynamite that ended with the poorly-received Dark Order angle, as a group of masked men attacked the Young Bucks, complete with phantom punches.
Is this time of the year usually a weak period for TV viewership generally? It’s true summer months have lower viewership generally, but my query of historical data scraped from Showbuzz going back to 2016 shows that July and August are sometimes on-average weaker months than June.
But what about the holiday? Dynamite on Wednesday aired on the Juneteenth holiday. This is just the fourth year that Juneteenth has been recognized as a U.S. federal holiday, so we don’t have a long history to study. However, holidays have clearly impacted wrestling viewership in the past. We have numerous examples of Raw doing lower numbers on holidays, as Raw has always aired on Mondays when holidays are frequently observed. Last year Independence Day fell on a Tuesday and NXT had its lowest non-preemption total viewership in its history (508,000 viewers).
What does this mean for AEW??
One week’s rating doesn’t mean much for any wrestling program airing regularly. Averages over the course of months, quarters, and years mean a lot more. Dynamite averaged 862,000 viewers in June 2023. So far in June 2024, Dynamite has averaged 658,000, down 24%. Yes, cable is in decline and therefore TBS is in fewer homes than it was a year ago, but that negative difference is likely in the single-digits of percent, much less severe than 24%.
Dynamite will probably be up next week, which will soften that year-over-year comparison, but probably not by that much. Dynamite’s #9 rank in the demo among cable originals this week is not as strong as usual. If it delivered at that rank regularly, Dynamite would be a less valuable program. On average in Q2 2024, Dynamite is ranking #4, a little better than last year when it ranked #5 in Q2.
This very bad rating is cause for a lot of online and podcast engagement. If Dynamite continues to delivers numbers like this, it will impact the show’s media value, but we’re far from there yet.
However it can’t be dismissed that this is one page in a larger continuing story about AEW’s fan popularity diminishing, which is evident not just in TV ratings but in attendance, too. Dynamite attendance is down 30% quarter-to-date from last year, according to WrestleTix estimates. Still, in this counterintuitive economic environment, there’s a lot of slack between fan popularity and media value, specifically for AEW and WWE. Until Dynamite’s average rank over larger periods of time falls, the show (not to mention other content likely to be bundled in, some of which is not included in the current deal) is likely worth a strong raise in media rights fees.
The momentum in wrestling fan culture has absolutely shifted since mid-2022. That timing coincides with some key events, including Vince McMahon’s withdrawal from influence over WWE’s creative, Cody Rhodes’ exit from AEW earlier in the year, and CM Punk’s injuries and public meltdown, eventually leading to his jump to WWE in late 2023.
I think this chart below does a good job of illustrating that shift in momentum.
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