As we previously reported here on eWn, the decrease in viewership for this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite can be attributed to the unusual airtime on TBS.
AEW Dynamite aired live coast-to-coast instead of the usual delay in the west coast feed. This broadcast change was not surprising to AEW officials, who were aware of the potential impact on viewership.
AEW’s broadcast partner, Warner Bros. Discovery, expressed satisfaction with this week’s numbers, considering the various obstacles that were out of AEW’s hands, such as the altered broadcast time and the audio issues during the broadcast.
AEW Dynamite drew an average audience of 683,000 viewers with a 0.23 rating in the key demo.
Pwinsider is reporting that according to a WBD source, AEW had stiff competition this week from the NBA and NHL Playoffs, and Dynamite still ranked sixth for the night for cable original programming.
When the NBA coverage on TNT was removed, three of the shows that were higher than AEW Dynamite were eliminated, which is internally considered to be in the same broadcast family as WBD.
The source also stated that only NHL Playoff coverage on ESPN ranked higher than AEW Dynamite on Wednesday, with the wrestling show still ranking higher than all the other original cable programming in the key ratings demo.
The source also addressed the issues with the West Coast feed not airing at 8:00 PM PST due to the NBA Playoff coverage and the audio issues on TBS.
The audio issues with AEW Dynamite on TBS resulted from the “TBS uplink” itself, and they were reportedly not caused on AEW’s end.
As a result, WBD was “really happy” with this week’s numbers when they came in, and they also expect them to improve when factoring in +3 and +7 viewings through DVR and more.
