Why Nielsen’s New Method Of Measuring Ratings Is “Disaster” For WWE And AEW

Changes made by Nielsen to its television ratings methodology appear to have significantly impacted WWE and AEW shows.

For decades now, wrestling fans have been reading about ratings regarding their favorite wrestling show. Nielsen is the company that has been tracking ratings for decades for all of television.

Back in the late 1990s, when WWE Monday Night Raw went head-to-head with WCW Monday Nitro, the ratings of those shows were major talking points because they indicated who had the larger audience. When Nitro beat Raw for 83 weeks in a row, it was a big deal. It’s such a big deal that former WCW President Eric Bischoff literally uses “83 Weeks” as the name of his podcast to remind people that WCW beat WWE for nearly two years in the late 1990s. Once Steve Austin became WWE’s biggest star in the spring of 1998, they surged ahead and never looked back.

Television has changed significantly since then, as fewer people now use cable and instead rely on streaming services. A show like SmackDown was drawing over 5 million viewers on TV 25 years ago, and now that number has dropped to about 1.5 million; yet, WWE as a product is bigger than ever. Reality is, people consume content in different ways today compared to past generations.

As for Nielsen, Wrestlenomics explained that they are measuring TV ratings differently. In the past, “Nielsen TV ratings data have been measured with the panel-only methodology (sometimes called Automatic Content Measurement or ACM).” However, that has been replaced by something called “Big Data + Panel.”

According to Nielsen, Big Data + Panel is supposed to improve accuracy and the Media Rating Council approved it. Wrestlenomics added that, “Big Data + Panel uses massive device-level data from set-top boxes and smart TVs. Panel data is also in the new methodology to validate the big data and scale measurements.”

WWE NXT And AEW Dynamite Viewership Numbers Went Down Significantly Using Nielsen’s New Methods

For televised wrestling shows like WWE NXT on The CW in the US, AEW Dynamite on TBS, WWE SmackDown on USA Network, and AEW Collision on TNT, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer has described Nielsen’s new methods as a “disaster” for professional wrestling.

Writing in his Daily Update, Meltzer noted that AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT experienced significant declines in viewership, as tracked by Nielsen. For AEW, it’s worth noting that their streaming audience on HBO Max is not reported, so it’s unclear how many people watch it there.

“The new Nielsen methodology for television ratings is a disaster for pro wrestling. The move is basically complete and from this point forward we’ll be getting it based on the new numbers. AEW did 465,000 viewers and 0.09 (18-49 audience) for the anniversary show, down 32 percent from last week under the old method from 0.14. These numbers don’t include HBO MAX. The Yankees-Red Sox game hurt it but it’s more the change.

NXT was also down 41 percent from the prior Tuesday going from 0.17 to 0.10. Smackdown was also down heavy, but more in viewers than 18-49, which went from 0.37 to 0.35.

The last 30 minutes did hurt the show but even so, in the regular two hours it was 0.10. The second hour had a big drop from the first which also could relate to the baseball game. Male numbers were incredibly down. As for where it hurt most, males 18-34 were down 66 percent, Women 18-34 were down 57 percent, males 35-49 were down 27 percent. Baseball should have accounted for a small part of that, but it was also the anniversary show.

NXT also did terribly with 18-34, doing an 0.06 and AEW did even worse at 0.04. While nothing in reality has changed, these numbers are going to be viewed over the long term with the conclusion young people don’t watch wrestling and that’s a very bad conclusion when the vast majority of revenue comes from television.

A lot of this stuff may seem irrelevant to some fans, but pro wrestling companies tend to look at ratings to see what stories are working, what wrestlers are leading to more viewers (or less viewers), and that’s why it matters to them. Whether anything changes in the long term remains to be seen.