Image: AEW
With coverage of President Donald Trump’s second impeachment dominating the cable news channels, roughly the same amount of people overall watched Wednesday night wrestling as last week. Dynamite won the night with an average of 762,000 viewers to NXT’s 551,000.
Dynamite finished 31st on the cable charts with a 0.30 rating in the 18-49 demo. NXT finished 70th with a 0.14 rating.
In addition to news coverage, Wednesday was opening night of the NHL season and there were NBA games on ESPN as well, leading to more sports competition than usual.
The combined audience of 1.313 million viewers was just ahead of the 1.303 million viewers that Dynamite and NXT combined for last Wednesday, which was the day of the storming of the United States Capitol building.
Dynamite was up 15.1 percent in viewership from last week and up 20 percent in the 18-49 demo. NXT was down 14 percent in viewership and 12.5 percent in the demo.
This was the third-lowest viewership that NXT has averaged on the USA Network. The two episodes that drew lower audiences didn’t feature new in-ring content.
As compared to the same week last year, Dynamite was down 18.9 percent in viewership and 21.1 percent in the demo. NXT was down 21.3 percent in viewership and 33.3 percent in the demo.
Next Wednesday, Dynamite and NXT are taking place on the same day as Joe Biden’s inauguration. The inauguration is happening earlier in the day.
Here’s a look at the last 10 weeks of overall viewership and 18-49 demo totals for both Dynamite and NXT: