Now that we have had a few weeks to look at Raw from its season premiere, NXT on USA, AEW Dynamite, and Smackdown on FOX, we can start to see something from the wrestling ratings on television. Is it early? Absolutely. Is it still interesting to take a look at things? Of course!
If you go around other websites, you might see some wrestling journalists focusing on the sports competition for the shows at hand. I… don’t care. Am I ignoring important information? Maybe. But I’m also not excusing it for one show and considering it for the next. Your show has to be good enough for a pro wrestling fan to watch pro wrestling. If it’s not, and your pro wrestling fan would prefer to watch something else, you weren’t good enough. I’m going to be consistent on this.
This Week In Wrestling Ratings – Week 3, October 2019
(First score is amount of viewers, second score is 18-49 demographic. 18-49 demographic is in italics. All ratings come from Showbuzz Daily)
Monday Night Raw
This Week: 2.521M 0.82 Hour 1/2.318M 0.76 Hour 2/1.997M 0.63 Hour 3
This Week Average: 2.278M 0.7
Last Week: 2.443 0.78 Hour 1/2.330M 0.78 Hour 2/2.23M 0.70 Hour 3
Last Week Average: 2.33M 0.75
Ratings in 2018 (10/22/2018): 2.609M 0.92 Hour 1/2.622M 0.95 Hour 2/2.413M 0.89 Hour 3
2018 Average: 2.55M 0.9
Ratings in 2014 (10/20/2014): 3.59M 1.11 Hour 1/3.864M 1.28 Hour 2/3.63M 1.23 Hour 3
2014 Average: 3.69M 1.2
Monday Night Raw has lost 52,000 viewers from last week with a 0.05 loss in the 18-49 demographic.
Monday Night Raw has lost 272,000 viewers from last year with a 0.20 loss in the 18-49 demographic.
Monday Night Raw has lost 1,412,000 viewers from five years ago with a 0.50 loss in the 18-49 demographic.
Thoughts: It’s no surprise that in the past five years, Raw has lost a lot of viewers. It gets worse if you look 10 years back. And worse 15 years. And soon you’re entering the boom period of the Attitude Era and of course things look ridiculous. And while it might feel unfair to look at ratings from 2014, it’s pretty entertaining to me that All Elite Wrestling is chasing lapsed fans and when you look at the numbers that Raw has lost since 2014, it’s about what AEW is doing for television right now, especially on their debut episode. Correlation is not causation, it’s just entertaining for me. What’s also interesting is that Raw was pretty competition with last week until that third hour, which was a heavy drop. Five years ago, it wasn’t hour three that was the weakest either. I forgot about that. It was the “new” hour one from 8PM that really needed to catch up to the other hours.
NXT on USA
This Week: 0.712M 0.2
Last Week: 0.790M 0.2
First Week on USA: 1.179M 0.43
NXT on USA has lost 78,000 viewers from last week with the 18-49 demographic staying the same.
NXT on USA has lost 467,000 viewers from its first episode with a 0.23 loss in the 18-49 demographic.
Thoughts: I never thought things would be this bad for NXT on USA. I was expecting a neck and neck fight with AEW, and possibly NXT winning the second or third week due to having that head start. The fact that 467,000 viewers have stopped watching since the debut hour is terrifying, and while the drops continue, it isn’t the 100K that had been happening every week. NXT might be steadying out soon, which would put them in the 650,000-750,000 range. I gotta wonder if USA is fine with it, since while they finished 30th on cable, nothing else on USA did a thing on Wednesday night either. NXT is in a way replacing Suits for them and doing it for two hours. That could end up their saving grace through this (though I really think they should consider moving to Tuesday in the old Smackdown slot)
AEW Dynamite
This Week: 1.014M 0.44
Last Week: 1.018M 0.46 (TNT) 0.122 0.05 (TruTV)
Last Week Average: 1.14M 0.51
First Week on TNT: 1.409M 0.68
Dynamite has lost 126,000 viewers from last week with a 0.07 loss in the 18-49 demographic.
Dynamite has lost 395,000 viewers from its first episode with a 0.24 loss in the 18-49 demographic.
Thoughts: One look at the loss they got this week and one would feel it was mostly losing that TruTV audience, and while that’s technically correct, it’s pretty disappointing they couldn’t convert anyone to the show. That said, their rating could be settling in this range, since focusing on the TNT number they only lost 4,000 viewers. It would be great for them to stay over one million. That said, there were 395,000 people who watched the show on its debut who haven’t technically returned, and that’s gotta burn a bit. On a personal note, I’m glad they beat South Park this week. How is South Park still a thing? Is it keeping the Comedy Network alive or something?
Smackdown on FOX
This Week: 2.39M 0.8 Hour 1/2.49M 0.9 Hour 2
This Week Average: 2.44M 0.85
Last Week: 2.93M 1.2 Hour 1/2.87M 1.1 Hour 2
Last Week Average: 2.9M 1.15
First Week on FOX: 3.92M 1.6 Hour 1/3.818M 1.6 Hour 2
First Week Average: 3.87M 1.6
Ratings in 2018 on USA (10/23/2018): 2.087M 0.69
Ratings in 2014 on Friday Night Smackdown on SyFy (10/24/2018): 2.279M 0.61
Smackdown on FOX has lost 460,000 viewers from last week with a 0.30 loss in the 18-49 demographic.
Smackdown on FOX has lost 1,430,000 viewers from the first episode on Fox with a 0.75 loss in the 18-49 demographic.
Smackdown on FOX has gained 353,000 viewers from last years Smackdown on USA (Tuesday) with a 0.16 gain in the 18-49 demographic.
Smackdown on FOX has gained 161,000 viewers from Smackdown on SyFy (Friday) five years ago with a 0.24 gain in the 18-49 demographic.
Thoughts: Oh dear. This is far beyond what I ever expected to happen to Smackdown on FOX, and I was hoping for the worst. Remember earlier how I mentioned that Raw has lost 1.4 million viewers in five years? Smackdown on FOX pulled it off in three weeks. They are extremely close to the best rating Smackdown on USA did this year, which was on March 26th, two weeks prior to Wrestlemania 35. That episode was all about Kofi Kingston trying to get his shot at Daniel Bryan. Neither man is in the WWE Championship picture anymore. The scary thing is I don’t know if this gets worse or not. Five years ago they were doing 2.279 million viewers on Friday nights. That was five years ago. Could a network show on Friday actually be worse than Smackdown on SyFy in 2014? If it is, FOX could have some serious second thoughts about that deal they signed.
Tune in next week on Wrestling Ratings when we look at if things are improving for any of the shows, or if the reality of another wrestling boom is officially a fantasy.