The Wednesday Night Ratings - 29/10/2020

This was an exciting week for TV ratings, Smackdown got pre-empted to FS1, Raw had their post-Hell in a Cell show and NXT promoted their biggest card in months, probably since the Great American Bash, but what did this all mean for ratings, read on to find out.

AEW promoted the semi-finals of their World Title Tournament, along with a Jericho/MJF Town Hall segment, and it seems to have worked. Despite the competition they were up 3.8% in P2+ (753k to 781k) and 6.7% in P18-49 (0.3 to 0.32). They took all the granular demos from NXT except P50+ and one exciting one detailed below

After three weeks out of the Top 50, NXT had Halloween Havoc, a near TakeOver level show with some big matches and it worked spectacularly, they jumped up to 21 and beat AEW in P50+ (0.4 to 0.29), in total viewers (876k to 781k) and in M12-34 (0.2 to 0.14) for just the third time ever. This would normally lead to some optimism for next week's ratings but given that both shows are the day after the US Election, they're both going to be flattened by the news, so prepare for that.

Raw had a flat but somewhat disappointing week, they were coming off of a newsworthy PPV in Hell in a Cell, with a new WWE Champion being crowned but still saw losses in P2+ (1.776m to 1.732m) and P18-49 (0.52 to 0.51). These aren't bad numbers but show more and more that Raw has bottomed out (for now) at around 1.7m.

Smackdown had an interesting week, they were moved to FS1 for the World Series so had to contend with the other 3 shows on cable TV. Now, the comparison that everybody actually cares about is whether or not they beat AEW. I understand that FS1 is a weaker channel, and Friday is a weaker night for TV, but I think are offset by the fact AEW faces direct wrestling competition. And for this comparison I will be using last week's AEW numbers, so the comparisons are from the same week. So, how did Smackdown do? Not well. They did beat AEW in total viewers (881k to 753k) but lost in P18-49 (0.3 to 0.25), F18-49 (0.21 to 0.14), M18-49 (0.39 to 0.36), P18-34 (0.15 to 0.13), F12-34 (0.14 to 0.08), and P25-54 (0.36 to 0.3). Yes, of all the demos Smackdown only won P2+, M12-34, and P50+. AEW should be thrilled with these numbers and WWE just have to hope all the regular viewers come back next week, which did happen last year so there's no real concern.

You can find me for any ratings questions @WhyIsChester and while you're here check out some of the other writing at Pro Wrestling Musings.