Image: AEW

AEW Dynamite averaged 977,000 viewers for last Wednesday’s Brodie Lee tribute episode.

That’s Dynamite’s second-best number of 2020 for a night where the show faced competition from NXT. Last Wednesday’s NXT averaged 586,000 viewers, which is the third-lowest number the show has done on the USA Network. It’s the lowest viewership NXT has averaged for an episode that featured new in-ring content.

The gap of 391,000 viewers between Dynamite and NXT was the largest for a night where both shows had original matches since Dynamite’s premiere episode in October 2019.

Dynamite finished fourth on cable in the 18-49 demo with a 0.40 rating, trailing only college football bowl games and related programming. NXT finished 58th with a 0.12 rating in 18-49. This is the first time that Dynamite has tripled NXT in the demo. 

The 0.12 rating for NXT is the lowest the show has done in the 18-49 demo since debuting on the USA Network. 

Dynamite was up 26.1 percent in overall viewership from the previous week and up 25 percent in 18-49. NXT was down 16 percent in viewership and 36.8 percent in the demo. 

The overall Wednesday viewership of 1.561 million was up six percent from last week. It was slightly above the 10-week average. 

Year-over-year, Dynamite was up one percent in overall viewership and 11.1 percent in the demo from the first episode of 2020. Last year, Dynamite was returning from a one-week absence with a special Homecoming-themed show. That Homecoming episode also went up against an NXT year-end awards show that didn’t have new in-ring content.

NXT was down 20 percent in the 18-49 demo from the first episode of 2020 but up 6.9 percent in overall viewership.

Here’s a look at the last 10 weeks of viewership and 18-49 demo numbers for both Dynamite and NXT: