NXT Viewership Drops Back Down To Typical Levels Coming Off WWE Draft

In theory, the interest in Tuesday's episode of "WWE NXT" should have been above usual levels given the developmental brand's exposure during the draft episodes of "Raw" the previous night and "SmackDown" 96 hours earlier. In practice, it didn't work out that way, with the post-draft show, which closed with women's champion Indi Hartwell's farewell before heading to the main roster, drawing around where the show had settled of late outside of last week's Spring Breakin' episode.

According to reporting from ShowbuzzDaily and Wrestlenomics, the May 2 "NXT" averaged 568,000 viewers overall across its 125 minutes (down 12 percent from the previous week), approximately 183,000 of which were in the "key demo" most valued by advertisers, adults aged 18 to 49 (down 22 percent from the week prior). The latter figure translates to a 0.14 rating in the "key demo," which earned "NXT" 15th place in ShowbuzzDaily's rankings of cable originals for Tuesday.

For a bigger picture look at the ratings, the Wrestlenomics Patreon page tracks the median viewership across various demographics over the preceding four weeks. By that metric, Tuesday's "NXT" viewership was all over the place depending on the demo. The biggest percentage increase came in women aged 18 to 49, with a ten percent jump over the median, followed by female viewers aged 12 to 34, which went up by eight percent. Most of the other increases were negligible, in the one-to-three percent range, while the biggest percentage drop came in male viewers aged 12 to 34 at 20 percent down from the median, followed by adults aged 18 to 34 at an 11 percent loss, and male viewers aged 18 to 49 at an eight percent loss.