Ratings for Collision are in for people who care about that sort of thing.

Just above 800,000, which I think is decent in context. It's a bit lower than what Dynamite has been doing, but it's on a worse night, and without an audience conditioned to tune in at that time. So, I think that should be on the higher end of what AEW could have reasonably hoped for.

I expect the rating will go down next week to somewhere between 730 and 770k. Not because it was a bad show, but because it's only the first episode once. Some people who checked it out like Jumpin will come back, and others like me will have had their curiosity satisfied. From there, if they put on a show of that consistent quality, I think they can build back up to that 800,000 and maybe beyond. To get beyond that into the million plus territory, I think they need some kind of Xfactor. At this point, Punk is not it. He has his audience, but I can't see droves of new fans coming in. They need to find someone to fill those boots.

Wrestlers really need to stop trying to kill themselves on air. Ricochet and Logan Paul spot was stupid in theory, and when they didn't get the first part right, they should have just bailed out of it. Couple of other ugly spots here too. Logan didn't get the distance he needed on a splash making the gimmicked ladder not break. They decided to do a buckle bomb off a ladder into a ladder which just seems dumb when the regular buckle bomb has caused major injuries. 

Overall Money in the Bank was a decent show. Somewhere in the C+ to B- range. Bloodline stuff was great, everything else was ok. 

Well, this aged poorly. Collision's numbers are down to about 400,000 a little below rampage. Could say it's Saturday, or Punk's not a draw, or w/e but this is a consistent pattern that applies to AEW's other shows as well.

People are going to be upset I'm saying negative things about AEW, but the numbers are what they are. The product is really not resonating beyond that core fanbase, and some of them are losing interest. 

And, the ratings have been climbing back up. Most recent episode did a bit over 700k, which is the right trend. Apparently it's been a good program. Will be interesting to see if it starts beating Dynamite. 

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. 

When it comes to ratings, a few weeks ago it was actually reported by Fightful Select that Warner Bros. Discovery wants Collision to be at least in the top 5 (I meant to say top 5 in my previous post), and that they are less concerned by the total viewership number. Warner seems to know the numbers are not going to be incredibly high on a Saturday, but if they are good enough for top 5 they are happy. 

As far as a substantial part of the WWE audience willing to view AEW, I don't think that is what is happening. AEW fans are willing to watch WWE programming but not the other way around. AEW fans watch other wrestling like New Japan, Impact and yes WWE, but for the most part modern WWE fans have been unwilling to watch other promotions. Yes during the Monday Night Wars WWF fans did watch WCW, but today most WWE fans stick to WWE programming exclusively. I don't think I'm exaggerating with this.

AEW fans watching Money in the Bank likely led to lower viewership of Collision that week, as will likely happen this weekend since SummerSlam is airing at the same time as Collision. Hell the site I frequent for wrestling coverage had considerably less people in the chat during Collision the Saturday of Money in the Bank, so it would seem some had enough wrestling for that day.

Oh, well, WB knows what they're paying and what they would pay for comparable programming, and what ratings typically are in the top 5, so it's possible they looked at all that and decided top five is where they want the shows at. Although I wouldn't take reports like that to the bank.

Many modern WWE fans are not watching other promotions, but that doesn't mean they are unwilling to. It could just be that those promotions are not putting on products that those fans enjoy enough to watch regularly. Again, the people watching Money in the Bank were WWE fans, unless they were watching a product they are not a fan of, which would be weird. If they are part of Collision's typical audience, then they are also AEW fans. So, you can be both. Pretty much everyone who is watching AEW now is or was a WWE fan, so clearly WWE fans can decide to watch another promotion.

As far as WWE goes, Vince has been away due to health issues and possibly FBI investigations. Raw has been much better over the past couple of weeks IMO so hopefully Vince has a speedy recovery then enjoys his retirement. 

Normally I would agree on not taking certain online reports to the bank, but Fightful Select is pretty reliable and usually factual with their reports. As far as WWE fans and AEW fans, I'm sure there is some overlap between fans of both promotions, and no doubt a lot of AEW fans are former WWE fans. I'm one of those people to be honest. I just believe you have less WWE fans willing to watch anything else, while AEW fans are willing to watch a variety of wrestling. But hey that is just my opinion.

Now when it comes to Vince, that man ain't retiring until he is dead or pushed out of the company completely. The man basically forced his way back to power, which is insane considering the allegations against him.

I'm not super familiar with Fightful Select. But if their report is accurate, and TBS is happy, and Tony Khan is happy, and the fans who watch AEW are happy, and wrestlers have another place to make money, then who am I to complain. 

AEW viewers are already veering off the beaten path, so they're more likely to be plugged into the rest of the wrestling world outside WWE. A lot of those viewers have been there since the beginning, and presumably are fans in large part because of wrestlers they know from the indies. AEW was initially formed after a kind of crowdfunded indie supershow and they regularly mention and feature stars from other promotions. There seems to be somewhat of an expectation that AEW viewers will be familiar with people like Jay White or Minoru Suzuki or El Hijo de Vikingo, so they may have kind of cultivated the kind of fanbase who would be up on that sort of thing. So it's likely they are more likely to watch other promotions compared to WWE only viewers.

I just don't think that by and large WWE fans are completely unwilling to watch another promotion. I think for the most part they're just content with what they have. For my part, WWE is putting on something stupid like 10 hours of content a week. I watch 3 or 4 hours a week and am generally satisfied with that. I tried to watch the NXT PLE last week, but honestly it was just kind of too much, not because it was bad, but because I have no connection to what's going on and know that I'm not going to ever really put in the time to keep up with NXT in addition to Raw or Smackdown (although the Dragonov/Hayes match was excellent and maybe I'd be watching NXT this week if Dragonov had won). I'd like to, but there are only so many hours in the day, and so many games to play, books to read, shows to watch, etc etc. Oh and like, work and friends and family and that junk.

I kind of think I'm sort of the ideal target for AEW. Not me in particular necessarily, but someone like me who is into wrestling enough to keep up with news sites and such, but kind of on the fence about putting more time into it or replacing some of what I'm already watching. To get a person like that interested though, the product has to kind of be exceptional. Because two more hours of wrestling a week means they're going to have to give up some of the WWE stuff they're watching, or two+ hours of some other hobby, and that's asking a lot.

I think that's maybe a longwinded way of saying I partially agree with you? The people who already are watching AEW are probably the lower hanging fruit of the WWE fanbase, those who simply have a bigger appetite for wrestling, or those who weren't satisfied with the WWE product. The rest of the fanbase will probably be harder to sway. But I just don't think it's impossible, or that they are categorically opposed to watching other wrestling. They just need convincing and that hasn't happened yet.

Fair enough. I just remember trying to convince two of my friends in high school to watch ECW, and they refused because they saw WWE (or WWF at the time) as the only truly good wrestling around. They even made the bingo hall jokes ECW was always getting back then. That mentality still exists for some people today as I have come across it with WWE fans who refuse to even try anything else. I guess these are the harder to sway fans, but I still feel some are impossible to sway no matter what. But again, you made fair points and I get your perspective.