Pro wrestling during a pandemic just doesn’t seem to be going all that well for pretty much anybody. Between the lack of crowds to react in the venue, and missing roster members limiting the booking options, these shows are having a hard time holding the attention of fans, no matter how few their other options are. This week AEW Dynamite once again drew more viewers than NXT, but at the same time it drew the fewest viewers it ever has.
As reported by Showbuzz Daily, Dynamite had an overnight audience of 654,000 viewers, and a rating of 0.23 in the key 18-49 demographic. These numbers aren’t just down from last week’s 732,000 viewership and 0.28 rating, they’re also the worst numbers the show has had since the show debuted last October. The previous low for viewership came on November 27, when 663,000 people watched. The previous low in the demo rating was a 0.25, which they’ve had several times, most recently on April 22.
NXT’s numbers were also down this week. They had 604,000 viewers, compared to 663,000 last week. NXT also had a 0.15 rating in the key demographic, down from last week’s 0.18.
Dynamite fell from the #12 spot to #15 in the Cable Top 150 rankings, while NXT went from #33 to #46, managing to stay in the Top 50 for the second week in a row..
MTV’s Challenge: Total Madness topped the key demo ratings for the night with a 0.49. Hannity on FOX News had the most total viewers of the night with 4.7 million.
It’s worth nothing that this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite was pre-taped, whereas last week’s was live. NXT was pre-taped both times. With no crowd to leak spoilers, it’s not clear what the difference is, but maybe wrestling viewers can just sense the difference somehow.