With coverage of the 2020 election dominating the cable TV charts, AEW Dynamite finished outside the top 50 in the 18-49 demo for the first time ever last night.

Last night’s Dynamite averaged 717,000 viewers on TNT, topping the 610,000 viewers that NXT averaged on the USA Network. Dynamite was the go-home show for Saturday’s Full Gear pay-per-view.

Dynamite was down 8.2 percent in overall viewers from last week. In the 18-49 demo, the show finished 56th on cable with a 0.30 rating, down 6.3 percent from last Wednesday. 

NXT was down significantly from last week’s Halloween Havoc episode. Last night’s NXT was down 30.4 percent in total viewers from last week and finished 68th in the cable charts with a 0.14 rating in 18-49, down 44 percent from last Wednesday. In both viewership and the 18-49 demo, these were the lowest numbers for NXT since May.

The combined Wednesday night viewership of 1.327 million was down 19.9 percent from last week. It’s the lowest combined audience since May 20. 

Detailed demo numbers are not available at this time with both shows failing to chart in the top 50. 

Year-over-year, Dynamite was down 12.8 percent in total viewers and 14.3 percent in 18-49. NXT was down 25 percent in total viewers and 53.3 percent in 18-49. It’s clear that, for whatever reason, the election coverage affected NXT more than Dynamite even though the opposite is usually the case. 

Taking out the cable news channels, Dynamite was second for the night in 18-49 while NXT finished 13th, which is close to normal levels for both shows. The entire top 50 last night were news shows.

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