Tony Khan: How Important The 18-49 Demo Is To AEW

Much is made about ratings and key demos in the world of wrestling television, and AEW President Tony Khan has confirmed just how important the key 18-49 demo is to AEW.

Speaking about AEW’s meteoric rise to The Wrap, Khan said the following about audience figures:

“The (18-49) demo is the number that we are measured by, and that’s the chart that we receive from our partners at TNT,” Khan said. “I have a meeting with TNT executives every week and we go through the ratings. We used to just go through the ratings for ‘Dynamite,’ but now we also go through the ratings for ‘Rampage’ and look at patterns. The main thing we tend to look at is 18-49. We’ll look at different splits, by gender and different demographics, but absolutely the 18-49 overall is the bread and butter number that we always look at at the start of the meeting.”

Performance in the demos and the overall Nielsen rating were key measuring sticks for the Monday Night Wars between WCW and WWE, as well as the Wednesday Night Wars between AEW: Dynamite and WWE NXT.