Week two of the Wednesday night wars were a bit of a disappointment for both AEW and WWE’s NXT. While AEW managed to top NXT in ratings for the second week in a row, both companies still took a hit on viewers compared to the previous week. Here’s a breakdown of each company for the past two weeks.
AEW viewership on TNT:
Oct. 2: 1.4 million
Oct. 9: 1.140 million
NXT viewership on USA (four weeks since live TV began, first two weeks were only 1-hour live on USA. The second hour was on the WWE network):
Sept. 18: (one hour on USA) 1.179 million
Sept. 25: (one hour on USA) 1.006 million
Oct. 2: 891,000
Oct. 1: 790,000
It’s worth noting that both companies were up against MLB playoff baseball this week, so a drop in ratings was almost definitely expected by company brass. That being said, AEW still dropped over 250,000 viewers in their second week of TV, but it’s hard to say if giving the situation that drop should be noted as significant.
Meanwhile, WWE is in a situation that could be approaching a place of concern. Since its September debut on the USA Network, NXT has dropped 389,000 viewers, which if the trend continues, will quickly be approaching half a million viewers — nothing to scoff at.
Thus the question here is whether or not MLB playoff baseball is merely a bump in the road for the two wrestling companies, or a concerning trend of things to come?
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