NXT built up the Ripley match big, including basically giving her a 2 vs 4 win in War Games.

Meltz mentionned last week that AEW had pretty much as much viewers on DVR as they had live viewers, so there, they have not lost that much, people are just not watching it live anymore. He also said they were slowly losing the key demos though.

Still, I'm amazed people are talking about this like it would put the entire company in jeopardy or something. I mean… IMPACT… (now, if IMPACT outlived a short AEW, then IMPACT really would look like the unkillable promotion of the universe). I'm also amazed that this "war" is talked about like both company are on equal footing. I mean, really ? In a real world that would make sense, NXT should have squashed AEW every week since day 1. They are a WWE brand.

Not that I care one way or another really, I'm happy with whatever good stuff I can find outside of WWE. And becoming too successful is never a recipe for delivering good stuff for long (WCW past 97, WWF Attitude Era). I'm saying the same thing over and over again, I'm just glad AEW exists.

9 minutes ago, SirEdger said:

I guess it depends on what happens in the next couple of weeks. Way too soon to hit the panic button. They only have a few months of existence.

I don't know if it's true, but I had heard that before Dynamite ever debuted AEW and TNT were originally only expecting the show to draw 500,000 to 800,000 viewers a week maximum anyhow, so they probably won't hit the panic button.  I'm not saying they should, either.  Maybe these ratings are more in line with what they were expecting all along. I'm just legitimately curious about what the internal reaction to the ratings drop will be.  With the impeachment vote and the holiday season, the ratings were bound to be a bit wonky anyhow.  Plus they were going against the Season Finale of Survivor...that's what I was watching live.

I wouldn't panic. This was a regular ordinary episode of Dynamite vs a supercharged episode of NXT featuring two major title matches. It would have had to be a major upset for AEW to win this week.

Dave said AEW is fine with TNT with a 0.20 18-49 demo, which is more important than the reported 400K to 500K min total viewership goal. But he hit the panic button anyway because it has been declining, i.e. AEW has been losing its hardcore fanbase due to NXT's Survivor Series rub and NXT focusing on good matches which attract 50+ traditional rasslin' fans (but not many NEW fans).

NJPW, NWA, and NXT are more similar to each other philosophically than AEW, which tries to be WCW or WWE "done right", but AEW also has an indie league aspect to it, which includes obscure wrestlers, indie darlings, performance art, and weird gimmicks.

This and other forums went crazy over the Fyter Fest pre-show (Librarians and baby oil). The same reaction happens every week with the risky gimmicks and angles on Dynamite. It's amazing how the level of outrage for 5% of a show supersedes RAW/SD's nonsense every week. Just remember, the fanbase was complaining about the first 2-3 episodes because Kahn put on straight matches and post-match brawls instead of sports entertainment interviews, promos, skits, videos, etc. They still complain about length of matches on a wrestling program. Can't blame Tony for experimenting with skits now.

AEW has been causing a shitstorm on Reddit, Twitter, podcasts, and the various forums due to certain things, like Dark Order, Nightmare Collective, Elite losing matches, women in general, and not presenting itself as "sports based" or targeting "lapsed fans". There HAS been a bait and switch from Kahn- who pitched it as Mid-South- and fans wanted Omega and the Young Bucks to have NJPW 5 star classics every week. This has turned off some hardcore fans from watching it (I am not one of them).

The kids and women who tuned in for the 1st episode are long gone.

The DVR numbers don't make TNT or advertisers happy- being a live, cant miss, "sporting" event is what gets the billion dollar bids.

Not being negative- I don't want a popular mainstream wrestling product anyway. Only way to do that is to target zoomers and millenials, but I don't want pro wrestling to turn into a show featuring Logan Paul vs Billie Eilish, an Underdale walkthrough with Kenny Omega, Disney superheroes fighting like Power Rangers, or 2-hour Tik-Tok memes.

 

For what it's worth, Dynamite smoked NXT in the ratings last night, and has posted big numbers the last two weeks 

Hopefully this week is a one-off for NXT. The 18-49 rating was low and if that continues, Vince will want to start running it. 

On 12/19/2019 at 7:17 PM, War is Raw said:

Not being negative- I don't want a popular mainstream wrestling product anyway. Only way to do that is to target zoomers and millenials, but I don't want pro wrestling to turn into a show featuring Logan Paul vs Billie Eilish, an Underdale walkthrough with Kenny Omega, Disney superheroes fighting like Power Rangers, or 2-hour Tik-Tok memes.

TBF, I'm an old ass Gen Xer and I think Logan Paul would make a tremendous pro wrestling heel, like when Kevin Federline was on Raw years back. Dude has that douchebag charisma off the charts.

53 minutes ago, MoS said:

Hopefully this week is a one-off for NXT. The 18-49 rating was low and if that continues, Vince will want to start running it. 

If anyone knows how to appeal to the younger generation, it's a man who hasn't engaged with any pop culture outside of wrestling since like 1985

38 minutes ago, FMKK said:

If anyone knows how to appeal to the younger generation, it's a man who hasn't engaged with any pop culture outside of wrestling since like 1985

I was going to mention Scarface in response, but then I remembered it's two years before the cut-off

What has the ratings situation been, generally, during quarantine? Any bump in viewers?

9 minutes ago, Cowboy Hats 4.0 said:

What has the ratings situation been, generally, during quarantine? Any bump in viewers?

Decline, actually, generally ratings in the 600-700k viewer range. Total viewers have mostly been close between the two shows, but AEW has been winning the 18-49 demo by a good margin.

With Florida opening the possibility for the return of fans to attend events in a 25% capacity, which of the two you think will see fans at their events first?

Final score according to Wikipedia

63-10-2 AEW in viewers

73-1 AEW in 18-49 

NXT won the last week, but of course had a stacked show 

That pissant company won (it was not even a contest, really, it's been a slaughter). First blemish on WWE monopoly since 1998. Well done Vince. It did not even had to happen and NXT would have been better for it.

The question I have moving forward is will both shows go up when on different nights, or will they stay the same?

2 minutes ago, Coffey said:

The question I have moving forward is will both shows go up when on different nights, or will they stay the same?

I expect a slight uptick for both, but probably not as much as either company anticipates.

The best part of all this is how it was a completely unnecessary unforced error on WWE's part. All those years with Impact being the only other company to crack national TV left them overconfident to take on a company not run by a complete idiot and treat it the same way. 

36 minutes ago, Coffey said:

The question I have moving forward is will both shows go up when on different nights, or will they stay the same?

It's expected more for NXT since they already have the older viewers, whereas AEW has the younger audience but may not grab that much new viewers in the older demo (because of the style). Who knowns though. 

I was reminded recently about the DX HoF speech where Gunn was present after having signed with AEW, and Hunter said he is working for a pissant company that Vince would end up buying. Nothing about this war has given me more personal satisfaction than HHH being exposed as a terrible booker and his reputation as future saviour of WWE was laughable. The fact that they literally represented a Takeover and still lost in the demo is revealing. I know it was simulcast with Peacock and that definitely played a factor, but come on, it's TakeOver Wrestlemania! They should have done one million viewers