No_Name_Needed said:
The week Collision dropped to just above 450,000 viewers the show was airing just after Money in the Bank if I remember correctly. Not surprising people decided to skip watching more wrestling. The last two weeks they have not had direct wresting competition, so they have done well (and the show has been pretty good, so that helps). This weekend it will do horribly since SummerSlam will go head-to-head with it. Collision will die in the ratings this weekend, even with CM Punk in the main event. As far as the product not resonating beyond the core fan base, it is what it is. WWE's most hardcore fanbase will never really support it, and they are the biggest wrestling fanbase in the world. Casual fans don't know anything else but WWE. Not AEW, Impact, NJPW, MLW, or anything else. That will always be a problem for any non-WWE promotion. The product (especially Collision) has been very good lately, but if some people are not willing to give it a real chance week after week to see that, then what can you do? As long as both Dynamite and Collision are consistently in the top 10 in the ratings (and they are), the network will be happy. If they can build from there great, but it will take time. Fortunately they are still a new company and they can pivot and course correct if necessary. Hell they are about to have their biggest PPV ever with 77,000 tickets already distributed. That is amazing for such a young promotion. Now they just need to build on that. |
I don't think the network necessarily cares about top ten or top whatever, as it would all depend on how much they're paying AEW vs how much money they're getting from advertisers.
There doesn't seem to be any reason that ratings shouldn't be able to improve as time goes on, if the product is something potential new viewers would enjoy. They presumably have a marketing department so the casual audiences should be becoming more aware of them as time goes on. If Money in the Bank was responsible for Collision's low ratings, then that indicates that a pretty substantial part of the WWE audience is willing to view AEW programming.
Collision's ratings are improving, which would indicate that people will respond to quality. It still isn't beyond the Dynamite audience, so it might just be current AEW fans willing to watch more AEW, but we'll see if they can get beyond the 900kish cap that they've had for a while.
