Tony Khan was asked about the time slot for AEW Rampage, which airs at 10 PM EST on Friday nights on TNT, during a recent AEW media scrum and whether he wants to move to a different time slot.
“Isn’t it Nick a bit of an objective criteria?” Tony Khan said. “The numbers that we do are still one of the top shows. I think sometimes people think that the number that you do for Dynamite should be the exact number you do for Rampage, but it’s really an apples to oranges comparison.
“It’s frequently the number one show in its time slot and it’s beating everything we’ve faced head to head. Very often it’s been one of the top shows, if not the number one show a number of times even out of that time slot on all of Friday night TV. Frequently it’s in the top 4 or 5 so what we do out of that slot is very impressive. They’re really happy with the show, the fans they see if it doesn’t do as big a number as Dynamite to them it’s not as good. The fact is for the time slot it’s in, it’s performed really well and they’re really happy with it so I’m thrilled with it because it’s a great franchise for us. If it were ever to change and be in a different slot I would be the best I could in that slot too and whatever the standard is, if it were a slot where the averages were higher than we’d have to do a higher average. But the spot we’re in we do really really well. So yeah, it’s funny but the weeks that the Fast Nationals don’t leak it’s always a pretty good number, I wonder why. I wonder who leaks them. That’s subjective on their part. We all know what’s happening, I don’t think it’s particularly to their benefit.”
Khan then switched his focus to last month when Rampage went head-to-head with an episode of WWE SmackDown on FS1. AEW won some of the demo ratings while SmackDown had more total viewers.
“It’s done really well and ask the network in the slot how they feel about it,” Tony Khan mentioned. “It’s really good but I get that Dynamite is in a more attractive time slot and that’s also why I put so many awesome matches that would make Rampage a destination for a hardcore wrestling viewer no matter where they go. Even if they have to turn it on in somebody else’s house, in a bar, on their phone, you don’t want to miss Bryan Danielson vs. Eddie Kingston. You don’t want to miss Andrade vs. PAC 2, these are really special matches. Even trying to put something cool last night it was like a throwback to an old cruiserweight match with Dante and Arya where it’s two babyfaces but they were both from here.
“I definitely think it’s cool having wrestling on Friday nights even if it’s not the best time to draw viewers. There’s something to it, a lot of us grew up on that and it’s a great block and if you’re a wrestling fan that wants to watch everything, there’s a lot of great wrestling on Friday nights sometimes.”
Khan continued to talk about not wanting to change things up for Rampage.
“No, I think it’s our time,” Tony Khan stated, when asked one final time if Rampage’s time slot would change. “Obviously going forward everybody knows Dynamite is going to move to TBS after January but Rampage is staying on TNT and as far as I know that’s the slot. Plus Battle of the Belts is coming in January too. Even though Dynamite is moving to TBS, we will actually have another show coming to TNT so it’s exciting.”
