Dave Meltzer’s AEW & WWE ratings analysis for last week’s shows

For the week of 11/11 to 11/17, in the cable entertainment category, Yellowstone on Paramount was first, followed by Raw, SmackDown, the debut of Landman on Paramount, and AEW Dynamite was fifth.

As far as overall in 18-49 on cable, Raw was 13th, behind five NFL related shows, two college football games, three NBA games, one college basketball game and Yellowstone. SmackDown was 22nd, lower than usual due to going against the Tyson-Paul fight. AEW Dynamite was 41st, even with its best number since late September.

Last year in the same week, Raw was first and AEW was fifth in entertainment and 15th and 25th overall. The main difference is that AEW was behind 13 FOX News shows during the week this year.

AEW Dynamite on 11/20, going against the Country Music Awards as well as the regular programming, did 640,000 viewers with a 0.20 (266,000 viewers) in 18-49 and an 0.12 in 18-34.

The CMA Awards on ABC did 6,092,000/0.81.

On cable, Dynamite was No. 5, behind two NBA games and two shows on FOX News. Chicago vs. Milwaukee NBA won the time slot at 1,217,000/0.35 but the later game after Dynamite was over won the night at 1,063,000/0.35 by 4,000 viewers. Jesse Watters did 3,734,000/0.25 for second place in hour one and Dynamite was third. In hour two, Dynamite was behind the NBA game but beat Hannity (2,972,000/0.19) by 3,000 viewers for second place. Other competition saw Real Housewives of Salt Lake City on Bravo at 444,000/0.16, Challenge on MTV at 341,000/0.15, Expedition Unknown on Discovery at 910,000/0.11, Sistas Series on BET at 744,000/0.09 and College Football on ESPN 2 with Ohio vs. Toledo at 414,000/0.08.

The Big Bang Theory lead-in did 973,000/0.17 which was the second highest entertainment show of the night behind Dynamite.

Dynamite was down 3.9 percent in viewers from last week, down 8.0 percent in 18-49 and up 15.6 percent in 18-34.

The show did 62,000 in men 18-34 (up 24.0 percent from last week), 27,000 in women 18-34 (same as last week), 122,000 in men 35-49 (down 17.6 percent) and 55,000 in women 35-49 (down 14.1 percent from last week).

The show only did 1.31 viewers per home and the audience was 69.2 percent male in 18-49.

From one year ago, it was down 23.9 percent in viewers, down 21.1 percent in 18-49 and down 21.9 percent in 18-34.  Factoring in homes lost by cable, the real drops were 19.1 percent in viewers, 13.1 percent in 18-49 and 14.0 percent in 18-34.

It opened with 747,000 viewers and 296,000 in 18-49 for Will Ospreay & Mark Davis & Powerhouse Hobbs & Ricochet vs. Konosuke Takeshita & Kyle Fletcher & Lance Archer & Brian Cage.

The rest of that match, promos with Darby Allin and the Death Riders and the Hurt Syndicate and Swerve Strickland angle did 671,000 viewers and 275,000 in 18-49.

Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly, a Conglomeration promo and Kris Statlander vs. Hikaru Shida did 634,000 viewers and 249,000 in 18-49.

The rest of Shida vs. Statlander, Mercedes Mone & Kamille, Hurt Syndicate and Bobby Lashley vs. Cheeseburger & Joe Keys did 667,000 viewers and 273,000 in 18-49.

The post-match stuff with Hurt Syndicate, Sweve Strickland and Prince Nana, Mina Shirakawa and Mariah May and star of Darby Allin vs. Claudio Castagnoli did 649,000 viewers and 269,000 in 18-49.

The end of Allin vs. Castagnoli, Private Party, A.J. The Costco guy and Big Justice, Roderick Strong and MJF promos did 630,000 viewers and 263,000 in 18-49.

Angles with Daniel Garcia and Jack Perry, Chris Jericho and Tomohiro Ishii which involved The Conglomeration and Learning Tree and Jamie Hayster promo did 594,000 viewers and 255,000 in 18-49.

The Julia Hart video and Orange Cassidy vs. Wheeler Yuta did 549,000 viewers and 246,000 in 18-49.

The end of that match and post-match with the Death Rider and Conglomeration did 597,000 viewers and 276,000 in 18-49.

NXT on 11/19 did 672,000 viewers with an 0.19 (250,000 viewers) in 18-49 and an 0.11 in 18-34.

The key to this being well above usual numbers when they don’t have main roster talent in key spots on the show, is the Chase U breakup angle. The Ridge Holland vs. Andre Chase main event for both a title shot and if Chase lost, he’d have to break up the group, in the main event slot, did 731,000 viewers and 0.21 which is much higher than main events usually do unless it’s a show with a major main roster star.

The biggest competition was Dancing with the Stars on ABC (5,187,000/0.75). CW once again beat FOX, which did an 0.14, to take fourth among the five networks. Cable competition included Cleveland vs. Boston NBA on TNT (1,691,000/0.50), Jessie Watters (4,038,000/0.27) and Hannity (3,322,000/0.20) on FOX News Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (796,000/0.20 and College Football with Miami of Ohio vs., Northern Illinois on ESPN (497,000/0.13).

The show was up 6.5 percent in viewers from the prior week, up 16.8 percent in 18-49 and even in 18-34.

The show did 1.37 viewers per home and 64.9 percent male in 18-49.

From one year ago on USA, the show was up 8.0 percent in viewers, up 1.6 percent in 18-49 and down 8.3 percent in 18-34.  

Raw on 11/18 did 1,516,000 viewers with an 0.49 (653,000 viewers) in 18-49 and an 0.32 in 18-34 for a taped show which is pretty impressive since it did the same in 18-49 for a taped show this week as last week even though last week had much easier NFL competition.

It was fourth on cable behind three NFL related shows on ESPN and second in the time slot.  The Houston Texans vs. Dallas Cowboys game did 8,622,000/1.46 on ABC, 7,490,000/2.42 on ESPN and 878,000/0.30 on ESPN 2 for a total of 16,990,000/4.18.  Raw beat everything on television for the day except the NFL.

The other competition was Jesse Watters (3,684,000/0.20) and Hannity (2,712,000/0.15) on FOX News, 90 Day Fiance Tow: Tel A on Bravo (932,000/0.18 and U.S. and USA vs. Jamaica soccer on TNT (273,000/0.11).

It was down 2.9 percent in viewers from last week, down 0.2 percent in 18-49 and up 3.2 percent in 18-49 even though football competition was tougher.

The first hour did 1,502,000 viewers and the second hour did 1,530,000 viewers.

The show did 1.41 viewers per home with 66.0 percent men in 18-49.

From one year ago, when the show went against a Chiefs vs. Eagles game that had more than 29 million viewers, it was up 3.9 percent in viewers, up 1.4 percent in 18-49 and down 3.0 percent in 18-34.  Factoring in homes lost by cable, the real percentage changes would be up 10.9 percent in viewers, up 11.5 percent in 18-49 and up 6.1 percent in 18-34. That makes sense given how much tougher the competition was last year.

Invincible Fight Girl, the Adult Swim show about a girl becoming a pro wrestler, airing at midnight, did 204,000 viewers and an 0.12 in 18-49. Aside from a Hallmark movie in prime time, it was the highest rated entertainment show on cable that day, beating Collision for that spot.

The taped Collision show on 11/16 did 356,000 viewers with an 0.11 (154,000 viewers) in 18-49 and 0.04 in 18-34.

The key was a bad number in men 18-34 but a good number in men 35-49.

Collision was No. 15 for the day on cable and fourth in the time slot was behind the UFC 309 prelims on FX (816,000/0.36), Arizona vs. Kansas State football on ESPN (849,000/0.21) and The Hallmark Christmas movie Jingle Bell Run (1,730,000/0.13).  It beat On Patrol Live, College Football on FS 1, College Football on the Big 10 network and College Basketball on the Big 10 Network. Network college football head-to-head saw Tennessee vs. Georgia on ABC (9,823,000/2.39), Oregon vs Washington on NBC (4,121,000/0.84) and Cincinnati vs. Iowa State on FOX (1,002,000/0.22).

The show was up 7.2 percent in viewers, up 14.1 percent in 18-49 and down 45.8 percent in 18-34.

The show did 12,000 in men 18-34 (down 66.7 percent), 14,000 in women 18-34 (up 16.7 percent), 95,000 in men 35-49 (up 50.8 percent) and 23,000 in women 35-49 (down 4.2 percent).  The show did 1.45 viewers per home and was 69.5 percent male viewers in 18-49.

From the prior year, with the show out of its regular slot so these comparisons don’t mean anything, It was up 31.9 percent in viewers, up 38.7 percent in 18-49 and down 38.1 percent in 18-34. The big increase was just because of comparing a show in its regular slot this year to one out of it last year.

Going against the Netflix broadcast of boxing, both wrestling shows on 11/15 did among their worst numbers ever. Really you can throw these numbers out regarding comparisons because they are total flukes.

Rampage on 11/15 did among its lowest numbers ever, doing head-to-head with the Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano fight. It did 186,000 viewers with an 0.06 (75,000 viewers) in 18-49s and a record low 0.02 in 18-34.

Rampage didn’t crack the top 25 for the night.  In the time slot, it was seventh behind Memphis vs, Golden State NBA game on ESPN (1,027,000/0.24, extremely low for the Warriors on ESPN), Gutfeld on FOX News (2,819,000/0.17), Scare Tactics on USA with the SmackDown lead-in (380,000/0.15), Mexico vs. Honduras soccer on Univision Deportes (237,000/0.09), On Patrol Live on Reelz (496,000/0.08), and Marquette vs. Maryland college basketball on FS 1 (221,000/0.07against the first 30 minutes of Rampage).

It was down 21.5 percent from the prior week in viewers, down 16.7 percent in 18-49 and down 31.8 percent in 18-34.

It did 10,000 in men 18-34 (down 16.7 percent from last week), 5,000 in women 18-34 (down 50.0 percent), 52,000 in men 35-49 (up 18.2 percent from last week which is shocking given the competition and 8,000 in women 35-49 (down 66.7 percent).

The show did just 1.23 viewers per home and the audience was 82.7 percent male in 18-49, which is an incredibly high percentage for a wrestling show.

From one year ago, it was down 33.6 percent in viewers, down 38,0 percent in 18-49 and down 57.1 percent in 18-34. Factoring in homes lost by cable doesn’t make much of a difference as the declines were 28.9 percent in viewers, down 31.4 percent in 18-49 and down 52.9 percent in 18-34.

SmackDown did its lowest numbers ever for a show on the USA Network, but there were FS1 shows in recent years that did lower numbers.

The show did 1,234,000 viewers with a 0.32 (432,000 viewers) in 18-49 and a 0.20 in 18-34.

What’s notable is the numbers were way down even though the Amanda Serrano vs. Katie Taylor fight didn’t even start until after SmackDown was over, which shows that a giant audience watched the entire boxing show and not just the top two fights.

SmackDown was No. 2 on cable and on all of television even with the lower than usual number, behind only the Los Angeles Lakers vs. San Antonio Spurs NBA game on ESPN that did 1,280,000 viewers and an 0.36 in 18-49.

The declines from last week would be entirely due to the fight, as it was down 19.7 percent in viewers, down 32.2 percent in 18-49 and down 25.9 percent in 18-34.

The show did 1.40 viewers per home with 64.6 percent male in 18-49.

It was down 44.1 percent in viewers from the same week last year, down 47.0 percent in 18-49 and down 50.0 percent in 18-34, but that’s meaningless given cable instead of network and the competition.