Despite hitting some new lows with their television ratings this week, a new report suggests that AEW’s current broadcast partner, Warner Brothers Discovery, is satisfied with what the promotion is delivering in viewers.
This has been a busy year thus far for AEW. Several notable performers have hit the open market, and the upstart company has been able to land the majority of them. Yet, despite now having uber-talented stars like Mercedes Mone — AKA Sasha Banks — Kazuchika Okada, and Will Ospreay on the roster, AEW TV ratings this year have seen a drop.
Related: When Might Jeff Hardy Join Broken Matt As Free Agent?
On Wednesday, the numbers for AEW Dynamite on April 24 dropped by nearly 100,000 from the previous week to 683,000 average viewers. The show was the first event since the company crowned a new world champion in Swerve Strickland — AEW’s first male African-American champion. However, Dynamite did not get a boost from the shift at the top of the roster.
But, AEW did air live on the East and West Coast at the same time on Wednesday due to NBA and NHL playoff games taking up the primetime slot for West Coast audiences on TNT and TBS. That fact is part of why Warner Brothers Discovery is reportedly not too worried about AEW getting its lowest rating since January 2021.
WBD execs actually happy with AEW Dynamite’s 683,000 viewers this week?
On Friday, PW Insider reporter Mike Johnson claimed that WBD sources told him they were “really happy” with Dynamite’s results and landing the sixth spot for the most viewed cable show on Wednesday.
“The source also noted that with the West Coast feed not airing at 8 PM Pacific due to the NBA coverage and the audio issues that TBS were having (which we are told happened at the TBS uplink itself, not from AEW’s end), there were additional obstacles that AEW could not control and that internally, WBD were good with the numbers when they came in – and that they expect those numbers to be even better when they factor in the +3 and +7 viewings via DVRs, etc,” johnson wrote (h/t NoDQ.com)
Related: Goldberg Wants Final Match, Unlikely To Happen In ‘Cheesy’ AEW
