WWE NXT draws record low ratings for CW episode

Tuesday night’s WWE NXT — the go-home show for Halloween Havoc — averaged 525,000 viewers on The CW, down 23.9 percent from last week. It’s the lowest viewership the show has ever done on that network and the lowest overall for NXT since July 30, 2024.

In the 18-49 demo, NXT drew a 0.07 rating. That’s down 41.7 percent from last week and is also the lowest rating the show has done on The CW. Overall, it ties the lowest rating NXT has ever done on any station, matching the number it did on February 8, 2022 when the show aired on SyFy due to USA Network broadcasting the Winter Olympics.

It should be noted that these record lows come under Nielsen’s new “Big Data + Panel” measurement system, which was introduced at the start of October and has generally meant a steep decline from what wrestling shows had been doing previously.

NXT went head-to-head with opening night of the NBA season, which did the best numbers that league has drawn for its opener in the last 15 years. The first NBA game on new broadcast partner NBC averaged 5.096 million viewers and drew a 1.39 rating in the 18-49 demo.

As compared to the same week in 2024, which was with the old Nielsen panel-only system, NXT’s overall viewership was down 25.2 percent while the 18-49 rating was down 56.3 percent.

Listed below are the last 11 weeks of viewership numbers and 18-49 demo ratings for NXT, as well as the 10-week average in both categories. This week’s episode was down 21.2 percent in overall viewers and 50 percent in 18-49 as compared to the recent averages.

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Paul Fontaine
Paul Fontaine

Paul Fontaine is a writer and podcaster covering both pro wrestling and mixed martial art. He has been a contributor to F4W Online for over 10 years, focusing mostly on the business side of both sports.