TK can sell his ass off, he pulls off the sympathetic goof so well. I already know he can throw a decent stunner, I would like to see him face Jungle Boy, even if it's on Collison or something.

Between Dynasty and post-Dynasty AEW, the company is clearly stepping up and putting real direction into their programming. Dynamite felt different. It felt focused and compelling. Everything that happened felt important.

The show opened with the No Longer Best Friends segment. I don't give a flying fuck about any of these three guys but I still watched because it was something interesting. Trent with a decent enough promo that made sense. I ain't gonna watch any of the matches but a good way to get some mileage out of Trent and Chuck.

I skipped the Swerve/Fletcher match but I'm sure it was that AEW style goodness the fans crave. Not a bad way to feature your new World Champion.

Stokely Hathaway is a real dick isn't he? Why do Willow and Kris hang out with this guy? Pretty good segment, they introduced some heat between Willow and Mercedes, and we finally got some authenticity from Moné. The slap bit was unnecessary in my opinion but it doesn't hurt either.

Mina Shirakawa is a joy to watch. I've not seen her before but she's a great athlete with a lot of charisma. Loved the Serena Deeb return. Thunder Rosa and Diana Purrazzo have authentically gone to their own feud, making way for a new challenger. Solid booking. This is also the second time I've seen Anna Jay punk out Mariah May - is there something there?

The Casino Gauntlet match was pretty cool, which is high praise from me as I don't normally like these contrived matches. Of course the Ospreay entrance was the highlight but also nice to see Lance Archer and Komander hanging around. Ospreay winning did not surprise me. Kyle O'Reilly's appearance did. He just failed to capture that very title, back of the line buddy.

To be honest I skipped the Jericho segment until I saw the Shibata interview that referenced it and then played it back. Jericho with another new persona. Fair enough. I kinda like it. Big Bill pledging allegiance is also interesting. I imagine he will help Jericho defeat Shibata.

Apr 25, 2024 2:09:34 GMT Michinokudriver said:

bruh how fast can shibata type

He types with his mind obviously.

Moxley vs Hobbs sucked. However I did enjoy the Don Callis mini-segment with Ospreay and Fletcher. One of many interesting developments on the show. Are we heading towards Ospreay/Aussie Open against Don Callis Family?

That final segment...phwoaaaarrr. Good shit. If this is the endgame of airing the backstage footage, then I understand why they did it. That's not to say I'm defending the decision - it was not a good idea by any means - but now I understand the reasoning. The Bucks, Okada and Jack Perry on top of AEW? That's pretty scary. Seems like Okada is being booked like a big deal after all. Blackpool Combat Club seems the natural group to go against them, even more interesting now that Moxley is the IWGP Champion.

Let's take this a step further. Jack Perry is in House of Torture. Okada is allied with Jack Perry. Imagine if somewhere down the line, Okada shows up in NJPW and allies with House of Torture. You wanna get maximum heel heat on Okada? That's how you do it.

If Tony Kahn is present at the draft tonight I will love him forever if he is wearing a neckbrace or something.

Tony was talking a lot before Dynasty about how that event will sent in motion the events of the next few months of AEW leading to All In. So think the biggest surprise from all of this, is Tony is planning more stuff out and mapping the beats for how to get there, rather than just announcing matches last minute. Looking like the creative team he has been picking up is finally doing work.

I like the growth Perry has shown. Just the subtlety, the turn of the head and look towards the cam, I had no doubt it was a ruse anyway, but it confirmed it the second he looked at the camera.

I would however prefer The Elite don't speak at all. Almost a snobbish silence, every time I hear The Bucks talk, it's like nails on a chalkboard for me. And I actually think by doing the opposite of their usual over articulating and yapping it might be a solid way to ensure actions speak louder.

Rating was very low but more of a reflection of the PPV (does AEW ever get a PPV bump?) than the angle at the end. Next week will be more interesting.

Dave is fucking raging about the rating btw.

I do not get why people are not calling out wrestling journalists for pushing ratings at all in the current era. They are only valid they way they use them with the assumption that only market that matters is the minority of the US market that still consumers wrestling on live cable television.

Not sure anyone even in this forum still actually watches the show from the US on cable.

Apr 25, 2024 14:34:43 GMT Blindy said:

TK can sell his ass off, he pulls off the sympathetic goof so well. I already know he can throw a decent stunner, I would like to see him face Jungle Boy, even if it's on Collison or something.

Sent Shawn Spears ass to NXT! 

It doesn’t help that just last week Tony said ratings are the #1 source of fan feedback.

They would be if you got the full audience on any metric. This shit now though is just estimation at its worst.

So curious what Raw numbers look like on Netflix as that should be the first time we get accurate global numbers reported.

Apr 25, 2024 22:50:57 GMT @theshow said:

It doesn’t help that just last week Tony said ratings are the #1 source of fan feedback.

Him saying that was such a mistake. Maybe more so than airing the All In footage. At least that seems to have kind of worked..sort of.

And c is right. “Journalists” are only posting ratings because it does numbers for engagement. They’re the biggest reason people bother talking about them at all. Nobody would care if TK and Meltzer would shut the fuck up about it.

If I were to present the way the US ratings are used to my measurement professor he would have had a really good belly laugh. Like cannot generalize the ratings to the US market, let alone a world market. Like using the logic of the ratings more people engage with AEW on youtube than cable. And more people engage with positive videos about AEW events than watch AEW itself.

Did Tony join the Kingdom last night o.O

Apr 25, 2024 22:41:47 GMT c said:

I do not get why people are not calling out wrestling journalists for pushing ratings at all in the current era. They are only valid they way they use them with the assumption that only market that matters is the minority of the US market that still consumers wrestling on live cable television.

Not sure anyone even in this forum still actually watches the show from the US on cable.

I’m pretty sure it’s because other numbers aren’t as accessible.

And they work ok when you compare because the same shows that are down have the same viewer potential as the ones that are up.

I don’t have a problem with them. But if you’re going to high five when it’s up, you got to take the bumps when they’re down.

Has Dynamite ever drawn less than 700k?

It does not work when the audience does not stay stable. There should be an ongoing correction to numbers for the audience that can view it, but none of the crack statisticians that do wrestling analytics care to do anything but graph numbers they get from paysites.

No clue on the rating, really do not track what is normal anymore. Still used to the era where sub 4 million was a sign of concern.  Seeing Raw be a success at 2.6 or so breaks my mind.

They've done lower in 2021. Any other times since they've been out of their normal timeslot.

I guess what is hard for me to understand c is that AEW was drawing a million viewers last year. In a year they've dropped to basically 750k. Why is that not a concern? Ratings aren't dropping like that across the board.

If ratings don't matter to Tony he shouldn't bring them up good or bad. When he was winning on Wednesday's if he didn't brag and just said they really mean anything. No one would say anything. Now that it is lower trying to say it doesn't matter doesn't hold much weight.

Reason ratings mean less and less is a third of the US cut cable during the pandemic and number of people in the US with cable keep getting lower. People keep acting like now the ratings mean more than ever for AEW, but really, they never mattered less. Last year, cable TV households became the minority in the US and expected 70 percentage of current subscribers will cancel by 2027. There is no future for AEW on cable as it is a dying market altogether.

Wouldn’t the ratings still represent a cross-section of fans though? This is the part that I struggle most with. Maybe possibly the part that I’m not understanding your response. The ratings were never a measure of every person with cable. They were a sample audience. Even if fewer people have cable, the people that are being measured on cable still represent the people as a whole. And we are watching AEW ratings decline while others are staying steady or increasing. Wouldn’t it be conceivable that if tv ratings are declining, so are YoutubeTV, and Sling, and whatever other alternative is out there? It would be hard for me to believe that 25% or your viewers tuned out in cable permanently last year but they stayed constant on YoutubeTV.

And since tv deals make up such a huge part of the company’s profitability, wouldn’t WBD and NBC and FOX care an awful lot about ratings and not YouTube or Twitter views since it’s the only metric that affects them.

They are a cross section, and yes can be sampled for inference, but you cannot assume they are a random sample of fans that are demographically the same as people without cable. Adds a ton of statistical bias to any inferences you wish to draw. So no you would not able to infer that just because TV ratings were dropping that people are not consuming it other ways. You can assume it, but you will not have the evidence to back it up.

Networks from what I gathered looking this all a couple years back care less and less about ratings themselves but most impressions across all platforms. Generally that is what they use to dictate the prices of ads not average ratings for a timeslot. But things are in serious flux now as more and more stuff is being moved to streaming in preparation for cable to die out. Basically now is everyone trying to squeeze the last few drops of blood from cable before they throw the corpse to the wolves and a lot of things that used to be true, no longer are. Which is why we cannot really treat things as business as usual.

Apr 26, 2024 12:57:18 GMT c said:

They are a cross section, and yes can be sampled for inference, but you cannot assume they are a random sample of fans that are demographically the same as people without cable. Adds a ton of statistical bias to any inferences you wish to draw. So no you would not able to infer that just because TV ratings were dropping that people are not consuming it other ways. You can assume it, but you will not have the evidence to back it up.

Networks from what I gathered looking this all a couple years back care less and less about ratings themselves but most impressions across all platforms. Generally that is what they use to dictate the prices of ads not average ratings for a timeslot. But things are in serious flux now as more and more stuff is being moved to streaming in preparation for cable to die out. Basically now is everyone trying to squeeze the last few drops of blood from cable before they throw the corpse to the wolves and a lot of things that used to be true, no longer are. Which is why we cannot really treat things as business as usual.

Thank you.

One more thought. Since Nielsen is tracking streaming programs like YouTubeTV and Sling in their numbers and those are in the rise while basic cable on the decline, wouldn’t it still be an accurate depiction?

The only thing you’re missing is: who is consuming videos on YouTube and Twitter through clips. Which, I’d have to think.. why would Fox, NBC, and WBD care at all about those since they can’t capitalize off of ad revenue?

Outside of pirate streams, networks know how many people are watching their shows from start to finish.

Neilson is not tracking streaming platform in their ratings as after the last accreditation scandal, they never proved they could do so accurately. And their TV ratings are still questionable at best post scandal. Many professional groups no longer use them at all and use Comscore or in house metrics.  Given people often watch stuff now on non-TV devices, the validity of Nielson ratings are even further eroding.  Use your cable packages ability to watch on a phone or tablet and Nielson does not count it either, further eroding validity of the measurement.  

Since I know most missed it here, here is a couple of links for a fast intro. TL:DR entertainment groups that owned channels were noticing their ratings did not match the Neilson ones, which led to accreditation being withdrawn for awhile after Nielson admitted internal issues with their reporting.

www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2021/09/01/for-nielsen-ratings-complaints-and-potential-competitors-is-nothing-new/?sh=30d3df301bed

variety.com/2021/tv/news/nielsen-national-ratings-suspension-media-rating-council-1235053949/

As for clips networks absolutely do capitalized on it, as they join in posting them on social media.

Reported that WBD was happy with the ratings the show did, and article seems to imply they are not solely concerned with live ratings anyway, as they also take stock of +3 and +7 ratings, two more concepts ratings people pretend do not exist.

pwinsider.com/article.php?id=183158&p=1

So are you saying WBD said they are happy with the ratings that don't matter. If they mentioned it then it sounds like it matters.

Sounded like they were responding to criticism about the low rating.