WWE on Netflix, AEW on Max: TV Ratings Survival Guide in the Era of Streaming | Analysis

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The ratings you’re familiar with—including the data Wrestlenomics generally reports—are measured using a method called Average Minute Audience (AMA). So for example when a show “has” 1,234,000 viewers, that represents the number of viewers averaged by the minute across the entire duration of the program.

Streaming data may be measured differently, depending on the platform.

The ratings data you’re familiar with are measured by a third party: Nielsen.

Streaming data might be the company’s own first-party measurement.

The ratings data you’re familiar with reflects U.S. viewership only.

Streaming data might be global, especially if, like WWE on Netflix, your program is broadcast throughout much of the world.

The ratings data you’re familiar with is live+same-day. It doesn’t include DVR viewing beyond about 3 am after the program airs.

Streaming has to this point in media history primarily been the home for scripted and other video on demand content. Not stuff—like sports and news and even predetermined wrestling—that people generally want to watch live and simultaneously. Otherwise, though, Netflix freed viewers from the unneeded relic of scripted TV airing in time slots.

Netflix, to its credit, publishes its weekly global top 10 programs in a way that mimics AMA. However, their data includes delayed viewing from across the entire week. This is only natural as Netflix until now doesn’t air programs in time slots.

Nielsen doesn’t yet measure specific live-streaming broadcasts the same way it measures traditional TV, except for in a few major cases, like NFL broadcasts on streaming platforms.

For streaming platforms like Peacock, Netflix, or Max/WBD—whether reported by the streamer itself, a wrestling company, or a PR-friendly Twitter account—you should ask whether that number is measured like typical Nielsen ratings, with our treasured AMA measurement. Unless it’s explicitly stated as such, it probably isn’t. Instead, the figure might for all we know be the number of accounts that tuned in for any duration—regardless of whether they watched the whole program or just a few seconds.

Have your magnifying glass out. Even if the figure is an AMA measurement, there’s another layer to consider: is it based on first-party data? If so, that means the viewership was measured by the streaming platform itself. First-party data is inherently conflicted—streamers have a vested interest in reporting the highest possible audience numbers.

By contrast, data from third-party sources like Nielsen or VideoAmp (which Netflix said will measure content like WWE Raw) is more independent. These companies serve advertisers who need reliable data to understand the size and demographics of the audience they’re paying to reach. Unlike first-party data, third-party measurements are less likely to be inflated by conflicts of interest.

What these complications around WWE and AEW putting their weekly shows on streaming add up to is that the opportunities to spin the data are fantastic and many.

AEW is streaming on Max only in the U.S. Around 50 million subscribers have access to Max in the U.S., but keep in mind many of those subscribers are just traditional HBO subscribers who probably rarely if ever use Max.

Indeed, Nielsen’s ‘The Gauge’ shows Max isn’t among the top five U.S. streaming services. (Yes, Nielsen measures streaming TV viewing in a more general sense, but doesn’t provide program-specific data.) Just over 1% of all TV time is spent using Max, which ranks well behind YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Disney+. Max is more in the neighborhood of Peacock, Paramount+ and no-cost “FAST” services like Tubi and Roku.

I point that out to clarify the significant difference between Max and leaders in streaming like Netflix. AEW on Max is not WWE on Netflix. But there’s no doubt Max is putting AEW in millions of households that before this month didn’t have access to it. It should genuinely increase the size of AEW’s audience and perhaps help stabilize AEW’s declining fan metrics.

With that said, it’s possible the cannibalization effect on the traditional viewership of Dynamite on TBS and Collision on TNT won’t be extreme. I could be wrong when traditional ratings data becomes available. But how many viewers actually watch Dynamite or Collision, in an average minute on Max, I’m afraid might be a mystery or, in a better scenario, questionable.

Netflix, in contrast, is the #2 most-used streaming platform in the U.S., and #1 among the ones behind a paywall. Netflix is in more U.S. households than any top cable network and its coverage lead over those channels will only grow as cable continues to decline and Netflix subscribers, at worst, remain flat. There are about 70 million subscribers to Netflix in the U.S., around 65 million households for top cable. And that’s not even taking into consideration that plenty of individual Netflix accounts are covering multiple homes thanks to password sharing.

Unlike AEW’s simulcasts on both traditional TV and streaming, Raw in the U.S. will be airing solely on streaming.

And unlike Max, Netflix is a broadly global platform. People from all over the world will be watching Raw live on the service.

I fully expect the audience for the Jan. 6 debut of Raw on Netflix to be much bigger than the normal audience for Raw in the U.S. and elsewhere. Given the hype and talent advertised, it’s apt to be the kind of success that Netflix and WWE will put out a press release about on Tuesday morning, rightly so.

But I would be skeptical of any data Netflix and WWE disclose, again, unless they say the viewership is an average minute audience measurement. And if they want people to really trust it, they’ll release the data that VideoAmp measured, rather than Netflix’s own first-party numbers. And furthermore, the data will only be comparable to recent Raw TV ratings data if they disclose the live+same-day AMA in the U.S. only.

If I’m WWE or Netflix and I really want to spin the biggest number possible, perhaps I’d announce on Tuesday morning the number of accounts that simply logged into the stream once, globally—multiplied by the highest reasonably plausible assumption about how many viewers per account were watching. And—I’d measure not just live and same-day viewing but any activity that occurred between live and up to the hour that I’d put out the press release.

Such creative math would likely result in a figure many times greater than the 2024 live+same-day U.S. AMA of 1.66 million viewers for Raw on USA Network, which would make for an amazing apples-to-oranges comparison.