Even though AEW has grown a lot in the last five years, one of their biggest problems is that their shows, especially Dynamite, are losing viewers. A record-low number of people watched Dynamite on June 19th, and the main reasons for this have been found.
Record Low Numbers of Viewers
As was already said, the June 19th episode of AEW Dynamite had 502,000 viewers and a 0.16 rating in the important 18–49 age group, which was the show’s lowest rating ever. Fans and people who work in the business are both worried and guessing about this sudden drop.
Looking at the Effect of the Lead-In
Fightful Select got in touch with different people at AEW and Warner Bros. Discovery to find out what they thought. AEW officials said that “The Big Bang Theory,” which comes before Dynamite, usually gets between 200,000 and 250,000 people for its last quarter-hour. But this week’s lead-in, “Black Panther,” only got 85,000 viewers in the demo for the last quarter-hour, which caused a big drop-off. They think the people who weren’t there were the regular lead-in viewers who didn’t watch this week.
AEW officials said that the “tune-in” numbers were strong, even though the lead-in numbers were down. This suggests that the original viewers stayed interested once the show started. The fact that AEW actors were surprised by the low number of people shows how random TV ratings can be.
Outside Factors at Play
A Warner Bros. Discovery official said that the drop was caused by a number of things, such as the holiday of Juneteenth, competition from the Olympic trials and the College Baseball World Series, and the fact that it was unusually nice outside, especially in the Northeast, which made more people want to be active. The official played down the importance of the low viewing by saying that it was probably just a one-off and that they thought the numbers would go up the following week.
“Just a really weird week all around, with the Juneteenth holiday in the middle of the week (when does a mid-week holiday ever happen in late spring or summer?!). With the Olympics and college baseball all World Series in prime time, there is a lot of competition. There is great weather in a lot of places, like here in the northeast, so a lot more people are out and about. The spokesperson said, “Wouldn’t really put much stock in one week’s number, although I know the wrestling community likes to go nuclear with these kinds of one-offs.” They also said they expected the number to go up next week.
What It Means for AEW
Tony Khan’s company should be worried about the current numbers, which make people wonder if the show will be able to keep its audience and keep going. Many things could have caused this drop, so everyone will be watching AEW to see how they react and if they can get back on track. The wrestling business is used to seeing changes in the number of viewers, but it can be hard to figure out why these changes happen and fix them.
What the Future Holds
We’ll have to see if AEW Dynamite can get more viewers next week after this shockingly low number of episodes. It’s now up to AEW to show that this was in fact an outlier and not a sign of a bigger trend. In the next few weeks, both fans and reviewers will be closely watching how the show does to see how the company handles this time of doubt.
AEW has been put to the test before and has been able to do well in a very competitive market. The key will be to keep giving their audience interesting material that connects with them while also adapting to how people watch TV, which is always changing. Tony Khan and his team are open to new ideas and taking chances, which could be very important in changing the situation.
In professional wrestling, it’s hard to keep viewers coming back. AEW’s ability to get back on track after this setback will show how strong and flexible they are. The next shows of Dynamite will be very important in figuring out if this record low was just a glitch or a sign of bigger problems that need to be fixed.
For now, everyone in the wrestling world is holding their breath and hoping that AEW Dynamite gets better quickly and fully. The road ahead may be hard, but AEW could come out of this loss even stronger if they make changes to their strategy and keep working hard at their craft.
