In a video published by Wrestlenomics.com, AEW’s Chris Harrington does a minute-by-minute viewership analysis of AEW Dynamite. Here are the highlights courtesy of Reddit user SinneswandelX:
* The high point of AEW Dynamite was the end of the Sting segment with 1.201 mil viewers followed by the Shaq segment with 1.177 mil viewers from a minute standpoint.
* NXT had bad timing and went into a commercial break right as the Sting segment started.
* AEW & NXT often go to commercial breaks at the same time.
* AEW & NXT share around the same total time for commercial breaks including picture in picture (~30 mins).
* AEW does way more picture in picture than NXT.
* AEW full commercial breaks: 16 mins, AEW PiP: 14 mins
* NXT full commercial breaks: 28 mins, AEW PiP: 4 mins
* Sometimes both shows go to commercials at the same time and you see far less drop in viewership in such cases.
* AEW has control over when they go to commercial breaks, but it’s also a collaborative effort together with TNT and the advertisers and make changes, if necessary.
* AEW Dynamite would’ve done an average of 1.029 mil viewers without commercial breaks (18-49: 601k)
* The Inner Circle promo held very steady and even grew viewers, which is not normal for a long talking segment.
* Timothy Thatcher has not been put into a lot of drawing segments. He has been getting the short end of the stick according to Chris Harrington, because he insinuated that he’s also been put up against the stronger segments of AEW Dynamite, which was The Inner Circle promo segment this week.
* There is not a single metric that can determine, if someone is a draw or not.
* The best way to track, if someone is a draw is to see how they do in their individual segment without commercial breaks, week to week trends, etc.
* The Abadon match & Shida angle maintained over 1 mil viewers the whole time.
* NXT had a 1 min overrun where 30.000 viewers overall and about 7.000 in 18-49 switched over.
Random notes:
* Sting is resonating with the younger viewers (18-49), since this demo constantly rose for his talking segment.
* Sting created a buzz last week where people around the globe, business partners, etc. contacted people in AEW.
* AEW was surprised that this weeks ratings were better than last week’s, but especially with how consistent the audience stuck with the show.
* The tail is often times larger than the dinosaur meaning that AEW does a great show with so-so ratings, but the next week ratings reflect what they did the week prior.
* AEW DVR viewership is close to 30% of total viewership of a week’s show, which is the highest of all wrestling shows on TV, because of the competition head to head.
* This means AEW has an opportunity to lure these people into watching live, if they create urgency to make people watch the show live meaning they can greatly increase their viewership.
* Chris Harrington mentioned that NXT does really well with their women’s division when it comes to viewership, especially Io Shirai.
* Chris Harrington tells a story about a young girl, whose mother works at Daily’s Place, that became an AEW fan because of Sammy Guevara’s vLogs on Youtube.
* Jon Moxley does great on YouTube when it comes to numbers.
* The most viewed YouTube clip of AEW, where Cody wrestles a little kid dressed as Orange Cassidy, still generates the most new views of any video on their YouTube channel on some weeks.
* AEW is very proud that their homegrown stars in MJF & Orange Cassidy did so well in the main event on the same show Sting and Shaq showed up.
* Quarter hours can be misleading, because almost no segment on a show goes a full 15 minutes because of commercial breaks, PiP’s, competition, etc.
* Taped shows do almost the same as live shows and sometimes even better viewership-wise.
