AEW ratings haven’t been this low on Wednesdays in a long time

The ratings and viewership data are in for last night’s (Nov. 3) episode of AEW Dynamite.

Per ShowBuzzDaily, Dynamite netted 878,000 viewers for a 0.33 rating point in the 18-49 year old demographic. The show finished 6th place in the demo rating on cable for the night.

Last week’s total viewership didn’t reach AEW’s typical levels of greater than one million viewers. I argued that maybe Dynamite just needed one more week to get numbers back up to normal after a couple episodes were displaced from Wednesday onto Saturday.

It turns out there’s more at play here than just the day of the week. Yesterday’s numbers moved AEW further away from one million viewers, and this time with a considerable drop in the demo rating. AEW hasn’t fallen to numbers at this level on Wednesdays since July 7 for their first episode back on the road. Dynamite isn’t airing in prime time in certain time zones for a while, so perhaps that’s the common denominator that offers insight into these results.

The top matches promoted for yesterday’s card included Cody Rhodes vs. Andrade El Idolo, and Orange Cassidy taking on a replacement for Jon Moxley in the World Title Eliminator Tournament. AEW also spent a good portion of the show running angles to build matches for Full Gear, coming up on Nov. 13. In a move that is very uncharacteristic for the promotion, they did not announce any matches for next week’s episode of Dynamite. It will be interesting to see if these results influence Tony Khan to add some high profile matches to next week’s lineup to help turn the numbers around.

Here’s a breakdown of AEW viewership and rating in the 18-49 demo over the last year:

• Nov. 11, 2020: 764,000 /.30
• Nov. 18: 850,000 / .37
• Nov. 25: 710,000 / .26
• Dec. 2: 913,000 / .42
• Dec. 9: 995,000 / .45
• Dec. 16: 806,000 / .32
• Dec. 23: 775,000 / .32
• Dec. 30: 977,000 / .40
• Jan. 6, 2021: 662,000 / .25
• Jan. 13: 762,000 / .30
• Jan. 20: 854,000 / .36
• Jan. 27: 734,000 / .29
• Feb. 3: 844,000 / .32
• Feb. 10: 741,000 / .29
• Feb. 17: 747,000 / .31
• Feb. 24: 831,000 / .35
• Mar. 3: 934,000 / .33
• Mar. 10: 743,000 / .32
• Mar. 17: 768,000 / .28
• Mar. 24: 757,000 / .30
• Mar. 31: 700,000 / .26
• Apr. 7: 688,000 / .28
• Apr. 14: 1,219,000 / .44
• Apr. 21: 1,104,000 / .37
• Apr. 28: 889,000 / .33
• May 5: 1,090,000 / .42
• May 12: 936,000 / .31
• May 19: 821,000 / .28
• May 28: 526,000 / .20
• June 4: 462,000 / .19
• June 11: 487,000 / .19
• June 18: 551,000 / .20
• June 26: 649,000 / .21
• June 30: 883,000 / .35
• July 7: 871,000 / .33
• July 14: 1,025,000 / .40
• July 21: 1,148,000 / .44
• July 28: 1,108,000 / .45
• Aug. 4: 1,102,000 / .46
• Aug. 11: 979,000 / .35
• Aug. 18: 975,000 / .35
• Aug. 25: 1,172,000 / .48
• Sept. 1: 1,047,000 / .37
• Sept. 8: 1,319,000 / .52
• Sept. 15: 1,175,000 / .44
• Sept. 22: 1,273,000 / .48
• Sept. 29: 1,152,000 / .45
• Oct. 6: 1,053,000 / .37
• Oct. 16: 727,000 / .28
• Oct. 23: 575,000 / .22
• Oct. 27: 941,000 / .40
• Nov. 3: 878,000 / .33

For complete results and this week’s Dynamite live blog click here. To read a recap & review of the night’s events click here. For video highlights of the show click here.