Nielsen’s recent overhaul of its TV ratings system has created confusion and concern across the wrestling world, with numbers for WWE and AEW shows appearing much lower than expected.
As of October, Nielsen officially moved from its long-running “panel-only” system to a new model called “Big Data + Panel.” The new system merges data from Nielsen’s traditional 42,000-household panel with information gathered from tens of millions of homes and devices.
While the change was intended to provide more accurate ratings, wrestling programs have seen their reported viewership drop sharply. Interestingly, many other types of programming – particularly baseball and football – have benefitted from the new methodology, showing increases instead.
Fightful Select reports that the change has been a hot topic backstage at wrestling shows, though most wrestlers aren’t overly concerned since ratings have less direct impact on talent than they once did. However, the numbers are being closely monitored by WWE, AEW, and other companies that rely heavily on television rights revenue.
An AEW source told Fightful that Tony Khan is fully aware of how the new system works and is already evaluating what it means for his shows. Streaming data from Max, which carries Dynamite and Collision, remains private and is not factored into Nielsen’s reporting.
A Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) representative told Sean Ross Sapp that it’s still too early to draw conclusions:
“It’s too small of a sample size still. This past week was more affected by MLB postseason than anything else. Unlike previous Nielsen changes, there’s not a clear pattern yet of what’s up or down – though baseball has seen the biggest gains so far.”
The WBD source also pointed out that the new system adds an extra day of delay to Nielsen’s reporting, effectively ending WWE’s previous practice of using fast national data to compare its shows to AEW’s. Under the new model, early fast nationals are considered unreliable.
A longtime USA Network contact told Fightful that executives are paying close attention to the situation but aren’t panicking:
“It’s something that’s being discussed. Is wrestling less hot than a couple of years ago? Or was there a statistical anomaly before that overestimated wrestling viewership? It’s really early, and everyone’s still trying to make sense of the data.”
Both USA Network and WBD sources made it clear that there have been no discussions about cancelations, despite ongoing online speculation. The CW Network, which airs WWE NXT, did not comment, though those close to the network say they remain happy with NXT’s performance overall.
Some within WWE expressed mild concern that the new lower ratings averages could be used against TNA Wrestling in their current TV negotiations. However, TNA President Carlos Silva told Fightful that the issue hasn’t come up in talks so far and that discussions about their next deal are progressing as planned.
While the new Nielsen system aims for more comprehensive measurement, its impact on wrestling has been disproportionately negative. For now, the industry’s biggest players – WWE, AEW, and TNA – are still analyzing the data and hoping to better understand what it means for the business going forward.
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