Ever since its debut on TNT on October 2nd, 2019, AEW Dynamite has enjoyed first-run airings in the prime 8PM ET time slot on Wednesday nights. Dynamite opened to huge numbers and while they have not been able to maintain their 1 million plus viewers from the debut, AEW’s ratings have been consistently above average. Competing against NXT in the new Wednesday Night Wars, AEW has often won the night and almost consistently wins the key 18-49 demo.
However, while AEW has been a success for TNT, the network’s biggest cash cow continues to be the NBA, which is gearing up for the start of its playoffs after resuming the season at the end of July. The NBA was the first sports league to go on hiatus as a result of COVID-19, meaning the season should have already ended and new champion already been crowned. But as such, the NBA playoffs will spill into September this year, which means there have to be some adjustments to TNT’s lineup as far as Dynamite’s Wednesday time slot goes.
On August 3rd, @TBSPR tweeted a press release from Warner Media, the parent company of TNT, to announce these changes. Starting August 19th and concluding with September 16th, three episodes of Dynamite will air on different nights and at different times. The August 19th episode will air on Saturday, August 22nd at 6PM ET, the August 26th episode will air on Thursday, August 27th at 8PM ET, and the September 16th episode will air on Thursday, September 17th at 8PM ET.
While the Saturday show may well lose viewers due to competing against NXT TakeOver XXX, as well as just being a weekend program, the two Thursday time slots are very intriguing and could provide TNT a way to test a new night for Dynamite, or even a possible night for the long-talked about second AEW program that is soon coming to the network. As wrestling fans will know, Thursday nights are an open night on the calendar as AEW would not have to compete with first-runs of Raw (Monday), IMPACT Wrestling (Tuesday), NXT (Wednesday) or SmackDown (Friday).
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. You can catch AEW Dynamite Wednesday nights on TNT at 8PM ET, and AEW DARK Tuesday nights on YouTube at 7 PM ET.
