Johnny Gargano Believes Long-Term Stories Will Help NXT Increase Its Viewership

Johnny Gargano has a solution to help NXT viewership numbers. 

Since moving to Tuesday nights in April, NXT viewership has dropped from 805,000 viewers for the Tuesday debut to 654,000 viewers for the most recent episode. The show has failed to crack 700,000 viewers for seven straight weeks. 

When asked by Bully Ray on Busted Open Radio how NXT can increase its audience, Gargano believed long-term stories are the way. 

“We’ve gone after different niche crowds and we’ve brought back Great American Bash and Halloween Havoc, which did immensely well. I think it comes down to being able to tell long-term stories. I love being able to reward people for watching. You don’t ever want to feel like you’re wasting your time, you don’t want to tune in one week and then tune in the next like ‘wait, what’s happening?’ You want to see a thread and a long-term story. That’s when NXT is at its best; when we’re capable of telling long-term stories like me and Tommaso, Kyle [O’Reilly] and Adam [Cole]. If you’re able to tell these stories, that’s when you hook the audience and build viewership; when from week-to-week you’re rewarding the viewers for tuning in,” he said. 

O’Reilly and Cole seemingly wrapped up their feud at NXT Great American Bash last Tuesday.

As for Gargano, he will get a chance to be at the top of the NXT mountain again on July 12 when he challenges Karrion Kross for the NXT Championship. You can view the current lineup for the July 12 episode of NXT by clicking here. 

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