Tony Khan Says Thanksgiving Eve AEW Dynamite Was ‘Most Watched In A Long Time’ With DVR Numbers

Tony Khan isn’t worried about the AEW audience going anywhere. 

Though the AEW viewership numbers were down on Thanksgiving Eve and on December 1, Tony Khan believes the wrestling fans will stick around as AEW continues to give them pro wrestling.

“We have a great audience right now,” Khan said on Busted Open Radio. “People get so caught up in micro-trends. I’ll give you a great example; there were a lot of people out for Thanksgiving Eve, so for Dynamite, I was getting the DVR numbers back and the Thanksgiving Eve episode, a lot of people were out and we did a great audience. It was by far the biggest audience we’ve done on Thanksgiving Eve. It was our biggest live audience yet. It was quite as big as some of the other audiences because of the holiday. I got the DVR numbers back and it was the most-watched episode, when you factor in the DVR, in a long time. With that +7, the Thanksgiving Eve episode was a huge, huge, huge success. A lot of times, people get so caught up in these trends. The show this week finished third on cable. That’s massive for us. Anytime we finish that high, everyone is really happy and our share was really good for the night. There are tons of people growing up on AEW.”

Thanksgiving Eve AEW Dynamite drew 898,000 viewers and a 0.31 rating, which was the strongest viewership number for the show on Thanksgiving Eve. The December 1 episode drew 861,000 viewers and a 0.31 rating. 

Dave Meltzer reported on Friday that the Thanksgiving Eve edition of AEW Dynamite grew 41 percent in 18-49 with the Live+7 DVR viewership figures. 

Khan continued by discussing AEW’s audience and fans growing up with the program.

“There are a lot of people growing up with AEW and we have taken the place in the wrestling universe that didn’t exist for a long time. There wasn’t a viable second national company, with all due respect to the other companies that have been out there or were out there trying to fill that space. There wasn’t a viable alternative, nothing that has gotten the penetration we have on great channels like TNT and TBS since the death of WCW. Fans have been waiting 20 years for a time like this. Dynamite has been on for two years, we’re going on year three. There are a lot of people watching AEW. Instead of getting caught up on whether the number goes up by .02 or .03 each week, I don’t want to lose the forest through the trees. We have a lot of fans and they are pro wrestling fans. WCW had a great audience with pro wrestling and around 96, WWF did stuff that was as good or better. They had a lot of talent that weren’t the biggest names yet, but you saw that the fans responded to great pro wrestling. Then WCW, instead of responding by doing more great pro wrestling and maintaining the great audience and base, they got away from it. I don’t want to do that. One thing you can count on with AEW is that you’re going to see a lot of great wrestling. I promise. I’m not going to make it a whole show of talking,” he said.

Khan said the only show that featured more talking than more was AEW Rampage The First Dance. 

Fightful will have live coverage of AEW Rampage beginning at 10 p.m. ET on Friday. 

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