TNT’s Reaction To AEW Rampage Vs WWE SmackDown Ratings Revealed

Tony Khan has said TNT Network was ‘over the moon’ with AEW Rampage beating SmackDown in the 18-49 demographic on October 15.

Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Khan noted that he doesn’t solely decide which slots AEW programming airs in. The AEW President explained that he felt like he needed to respond when met with the 30 minute head-to-head, making CM Punk vs Matt Sydal commercial free.

Believing that the viewership numbers speak for themselves, Khan said:

“When we got the head to head competition, I thought, ‘we need to respond, we need to win’, and we did. I was surprised that the competition was going to be commercial free. I wasn’t able to go completely after talking with TNT, without them, but I was able to get it scheduled to where we could do Punk vs. Sydal commercial free.

“But I thought it was even more impressive given that I was forced to take a couple breaks. It was really great of TNT to work with us, I thought, on short notice to push our breaks back, so we could have that match uninterrupted. To me, it’s not up to us when the show is on. In this case, somebody moved aggressively into our timeslot and it was really important for us to do a good number and win the night. And we did. I really wanted to rally the fans and put some attention on it. I also really believed we were going to win, and we did. We’ve done really well in the demo, which is the thing advertisers and the TV networks use to rate the shows. I know TNT was over the moon and very excited about what we did.

“We put our chips in. A really smart person in wrestling said this to me a few days ago, someone who works in AEW, and what’s cool about AEW is I don’t think it’s just my chips, it’s everyone’s. We’re a team. and if you’re on the AEW team, these are your chips too. Somebody said to me, ‘Tony, you put all of our chips in. You made this bet and we won. And it’s awesome, and we’re all so happy about it. This is a great time for us.’ He was right. We won because of our wrestlers and the great people that work here, and especially the fans.

On October 23, a replay of the previous night’s episode of SmackDown ran directly against a new episode of AEW Dynamite. The viewership figures for both shows have now been revealed.

Transcription via WrestlingInc.

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• AEW Rampage
• Ratings
• TNT
• wwe

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