Forbidden Door Hype Leads To Big AEW Dynamite Ratings Boost
Tony Khan, wrestling promoter, did a great job of promoting his wrestling show this week.
This week's irregular AEW Dynamite promotional cycle paid off for Tony Khan, as his flagship show posted notable increases for its 9 February episode.
An average of 1.129 million viewers watched Dynamite across its two hours on TBS. This number included 541,000 aged 18-49, making for a 0.41 P18-19 rating.
Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics was the first to report these figures, as always.
That P18-49 was enough for Dynamite to finish first on the night amongst original cable telecasts, outdoing two NBA games on ESPN as well as Winter Olympics coverage on USA Network. Dynamite's P2+ and P18-49 were both up from the previous week's 954,000 and 0.35 respectively. Overall viewership was the highest it has been since 29 September 2021.
AEW differed from its usual approach when marketing this week's Dynamite, announcing only two matches more than 24 hours before Dynamite hit the airwaves, while Khan hyped a wrestler stepping through the fabled Forbidden Door, making their AEW debut. This manifested in the form of Jay White and Keith Lee, both of whom showed up on TBS.
For this week, at least, the approach yielded positive results, ratings-wise.
Data: Showbuzz Daily, Wrestlenomics.