Wednesday Night Wars 05/27/2020 Ratings

When we saw that NXT's audience grew by a whopping 139,000 viewers this week, we thought that the tide had turned and the WWE show was able to score its first victory in the Wednesday Night Wars since Apri 15th. After all, this is one of the biggest ratings boost for either Dynamite or NXT, and this week's episode of NXT featured a "pit fight" between fan favorites Matt Riddle and Timothy Thatcher. As we were ready to tally the statistics for this latest NXT win, however, we saw that the number of viewers for Dynamite also exploded. (See graph above.) The increase wasn't quite as impressive as that of NXT's, but it was enough for AEW to snatch the victory from WWE. Here are the details.

• The audience for Dynamite jumped from last week's 701,000 viewers all the way to 827,000 viewers. That's a giant upswing of 18.0%. We saw an even bigger percentage jump in the show's 18-49 demographics rating. It went up from 0.26 last week to 0.32 this week.

• As previously mentioned, NXT's ratings improved even more so. The increase was a huge 23.5% as the show's viewership catapulted from 592,000 last week to 731,000 this week. Similarly, the show's 18-49 demographics rating saw a huge jump as well. It grew from last week's 0.13 to this week's 0.19.

It is not difficult to theorize on why the two shows enjoyed such bumps in the ratings this week. AEW just held their Double or Nothing event this past weekend, and it is very likely that many viewers tuned in to see the fallout from the pay-per-view. Also, we saw the surprise debut of FTR (formerly known as the Revival in WWE) and a segment between the Inner Circle and Mike Tyson. As for NXT, not only was there the aforementioned pit fight match, but WWE brought back Kurt Angle as the special referee for that match. And who wouldn't want to see the former olympian angle-slam Riddle or Thatcher.

Although Dynamite and NXT saw huge jumps in their ratings, those of Raw and Smackdown remain practically unchanged. At least the shows' ratings are no longer nose-diving like they were last month. Perhaps the ratings are getting close to hitting rock bottom.

• Raw's audience decreased slightly shrinking from 1,757,333 viewers last week to 1,735,000 viewers this week. That's a mere 1.3%. With that being the case, the show's 18-49 demographics rating unsurpringly remained unchanged from last week at 0.51.

• The change in the size of Smackdown's audience was even less significant. It only fell by 0.1%, dropping from last week's 2,042,000 viewers to this week's 2,044,000 viewers. So practically, the number of people watching Smackdown this week was the same as that of last week. With regards to the show's 18-29 demographics rating, it remained at 0.5 for the third week in a row.

Last week, we observed that the ratings for Dynamite and NXT were diverging for the first time in weeks. But with this week's ratings, it looks like we have gone back to the old pattern where the two shows' ratings either improve together or worsen together. The ratings next week should prove interesting, though. Next week, Dynamite won't have the advantage of following a major pay-per-view, so its audience size might take a hit. But at the same time, despite the poor reviews that Mike Tyson's segment received, it did generate a lot of headlines. So that might bring in some new eyeballs for next week's episode of the AEW show. Plus, Kenny Omega and Hangman Page will return to defend their Tag Team Championship. Over on NXT, next week will be the brand's go-home episode before its NXT Takeover: In Your House event. So you know numerous storylines will be brought to a boil. Furthermore, we will see an interim Cruiserweight Champion crowned. Is the situation with Drake Maverick real? Or just part of another WWE angle? Both shows have interesting aspects that will make for an compelling edition of the Wednesday Night Wars next week.

With this week's AEW victory, the Wednesday Night Wars win-loss record for Dynamite is 28-5-1 for viewership and 33-1 for the 18-49 demographic. This makes NXT's win-loss record 5-28-1 for viewership and 1-33 for the 18-49 demographic. The winning streak for Dynamite now stands at six.