The Wednesday night wars had its closest week to date, as NXT, with the exposure on Smackdown and Raw, plus the appearance of A.J. Styles, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson in the main event, took a big chunk out of the AEW audience and built its own, with AEW still winning 822,000 to 813,000.
AEW had a super strong show, but that means little coming off the angle and exposure that NXT had with the fresh new brand vs. brand angle. AEW still won in the 18-49 demo with 0.35 to NXT's 0.30, but AEW had been doubling NXT in that age group.
The AEW number has to be a disappointment with the baseball playoffs over. They had done in the one million range against the playoffs weekly before dropping to 759,000 last week against a monster seventh game of the World Series.
NXT was hovering around 700,000 previously, and gained a lot of viewers by having Styles and the type of angle that AEW really can't compete with. In addition, AEW was doing video packages to promote its PPV, and that is going to slightly hurt ratings, but in a lot of ways is a necessary sacrifice you have to make to build personalities and the key matches for the PPV and the future.
AEW was up 8.9 percent from last week, but it should have been up considerably more. NXT was up 39.8 percent,. The main comparison, the NBA on ESPN did 1,491,000 viewers, up 57.4 percent from 947,000 viewers the week before against Game seven.
The key take in all this, is that while the NXT number has its reasons for rising, and we don't know if this was a one-time thing or will change next week without main roster stars, AEW has not stabilized. The number it's at is still a good number, but the continued drops among the under 35 audience that were so strong from week one is a major issue.
The key take on the show is AEW's numbers opened well ahead and mostly declined, even with a hot show. NXT opened behind, and largely grew. By saying that, you'd think it was an audience switch as the two hours were going. Yet, an examination of the quarters tells you that wasn't the case. While the AEW audience was tuning out, for the most part they were not switching to NXT.
In the overall, AEW started with a solid lead, 976,000 for Pac vs. Trent vs. 819,000 for the OC Invasion and TV main event build and the beginning of Pete Dunne vs. Damien Priest.
But NXT role and AEW fell as a general rule, with NXT winning the final 45 minutes.
In the second quarter, AEW with the Cody interview did 959,000 viewers, down 18,000. NXT with the ending of Dunne vs. Priest and the Killian Dain attack on both did 800,000 viewers, down 19,000.
In the third quarter, AEW with Private Party vs. Dark Order did 809,000 viewers, a loss of 150,000. NXT with Taynara vs. Santana Garrett did 813,000, winning slightly, with a gain of 13,000 viewers. So in both these quarters it's not so much the same people switching.
In the fourth quarter, AEW had the ending of the Private Party vs. Dark Order match and the Chris Jericho video, doing 827,000 which was up 18,000. NXT had Shayna Baszler vs. Dakota Kai, which did 819,000, up 6,000. So again, not a switch.
In quarter five, AEW had Riho & Shanna vs. Emi Sakura & Jamie Hayter, which did 798,000 viewers a drop of 29,000. NXT had the post-Baszler-Kai wild women's brawl and an interview segment with Tommaso Ciampa, Keith Lee and Matt Riddle, and did 793,000 viewers, a drop of 26,000. Once again, not a switch.
In quarter six, AEW did 698,000 viewers for the Brandi Rhodes video and Shawn Spears vs. Brandon Cutler, a loss of 99,000 viewers. NXT had Tony Nese vs. Angel Garza, and did 769,000 viewers, a loss of 24,000, so again, not a switch.
In quarter seven, AEW had the Jon Moxley/Kenny Omega video package and beginning of Jericho & Sammy Guevara vs. Omega & Adam Page, which did 739,000 viewers, up 40,000. AEW had Isaiah Scott vs. Dominik Dijakovic which did 784,000 viewers, up 15,000. That's the issue with promotional videos, they are great for building characters and matches, but are not going to do the numbers of in-ring in most cases. This was not a quarter one would have expected AEW to lose. But again here, both groups rose at the same time.
In quarter eight, AEW had the end of Jericho & Guevara vs. Omega & Page match, and the big brawl at the end, which gained 29,000 viewers to 768,000. NXT had Lee & Riddle & Ciampa vs. Styles & Gallows & Anderson, which did 807,000 viewers, gaining 23,000, so again, not a switch.
What was a switch is that once AEW ended, NXT gained 190,000 viewers to 997,000 so the overrun, which had not helped the NXT rating in the past, did here. It's not a major difference, as without the overrun, NXT would have averaged 802,000 viewers