AEW has a 18-49 problem | Wrestling Observer Radio 

Bryan sounds like a therapist trying to help a patient realize they’re the problem.

"if you take out the 18-49 number they're actually about the same!" Brother, that's like 95% of your audience.

After the playoffs it'll be "it's summer people aren't watching TV", then football season, then the holidays.

The World Champion has been booked like a geek since he won the title, "Mega stars" have quickly become "just another guy" (which was always AEW's problem) and theres barely anything connecting the week to week shows. You could skip the next 3 weeks of TV and not lose any story development. Banger matches is fine in a bubble, but you need the thread of continuity to keep fans tuning in week in week out.

Excuses are running thinner.

Dave always dancing around the topic instead of just saying “18-49 viewers is declining because they’re telling you Dynamite in its current state is bad television right now.”

This is Dave's favorite type of wrestling. He'll never admit people dont care for it, it'll be admitting he was wrong.

The Bucks and Jack Perry are not over.

Dave will never blame The Young Bucks

Dave "everything is fine" Meltzer as the ratings and attendance numbers fall off a cliff.

Remember when the key demo was the only thing that mattered and now it's: "that's the only demo that's dropping so its not a big deal" lol

Dave got real angry once Bryan talked about Tony's booking. 😂😂😂😂

AEW is down in viewership on youtube too.

The insecurity footage killed this company. It’s the finger poke of doom moment.

AEW is building their entire program around a tag team that makes 10%+ of the audience change the channel, a Japanese wrestler that’s still very much an unknown to the vast majority of the American audience, and a small wrestler whose big claim to fame was nearly getting his ass kicked by the guy everyone wanted to tune in to watch weekly. This is a mystery why this isn’t working?

So fun to watch Dave do mental gymnastics trying to justify the fall. Worth the view

Aew has a stigma. Indy guys who aren't tv calibre or old wwe guys who want a pay out. They are both true and it can't be shaken off

Jim Cornette was correct from day 1. Mark booking catering to a small niche indie crowd that will diminish over time

People like Dave don’t understand that they are doing a lot of harm to AEW by never holding them accountable and making excuses for their shortcomings. They are never going to grow or survive if they don’t learn from their mistakes, and they have to know what mistakes they made.

Issue is Tony Khan. His embarrassing antics made people not wanna associate themselves with the name AEW.

It's the booking. It's crap...

When AEW was dominating 18-34 several years ago, Dave would only quote that number and say that WWE winning overall viewership didn’t matter because advertisers only look at 18-34. Now he suddenly cares about overall viewership when it argues in favor of AEW🤔

Which of the 18 titles is supposed to be the top title again?

The show being bad is the problem. The minute the Bucks, Omega, Adam Page and Jack Perry got washed by Punk in one way or another and Tony didn’t capitalize on that and make money with it, that was it. They’re WCW 2.0 This is the same group that let Cody go. Cmon now. It’s only a matter of time David

As long as Tony Khan continues to push the overpaid, overexposed, underperforming, & unqualified Young Bucks as main eventers in AEW (let alone real-life company executives with influence)… this place cannot be taken seriously as a quality wrestling company. It’s been 4 years already Tony… these guys aren’t it…🤦🏻‍♂️ Wake Up

because if you miss a Dynamite and watch one 3 weeks later it doesn't feel you've missed anything

Yes Dave the bucks ARE the problem. And maybe having a 50+ year old Copeland come out and beg viewers to watch and say "wrestling is cool" didn't help

Dave is such an AEW ball glazer lol I love AEW but I’m not blind to their struggles. Also I wish AEW AND Dave would stop bringing up WWE in AEW conversations

laughing and crying watching Alvarez desperately trying to teach Dave that the world title in a promotion should be treated as the most important thing on the show for the fans, and that if guys want to get treated seriously as top talent by the fans, they should be at least chasing that title.

It’s not the young bucks that have consistently chased off viewers for two years. How does anyone take Dave seriously when he says this? Why does Dave ignore all the stats?

I think the problem in AEW is a combination of a bunch of reasons: 1)Cody Rhodes ,their founding member leaving & becoming the biggest babyface in their rival promotion 2)CM Punk leaving 3)5 hours of TV throughout the week(instead of earlier 3 hrs) causing a bit burnout 4) Increase in ticket prices 5) Marketing & Merchandise team being a bit underwhelming 6) Running the same markets and making it less must see and exhausting for that local audience 7) WWE booking & product becoming way better due to Vince McMahon's exit 8) Doing storylines based on niche Twitter audience too much and not even explaining it on TV making non hardcores confused at times 9) Tony Khan having to not only book 3 Aew TV shows,but also Ring Of Honor 10) Introduction of way to many championships 11) Losing the cool factor it had 2 years ago 12) Signing way too many wrestlers on the roster & trying to push many people at the same time 13) Wrestlers vanishing suddenly & coming back, causing the audience to forget about them at times 14)Not following up major storyline angles in a big way

People pay money to listen to this guy talk in circles?

"it's the same as WWE " FORGET WWE😂😂

David, listen, the key demo vanishes exactly when the Bucks are on the screen and then come back when they're gone. It's not that nuanced.

The booking has sucked for longer than 4 weeks.

Boy, Dave better hope those numbers bounce back up to 800k+ after the playoffs are over, or he's gonna look like a bit of a goof for saying the P2+ number is "completely normal" aside from the playoffs. We are about six weeks removed from Bryan telling people "not to panic" over a ~750k number because it wasn't a trend yet. I don't think AEW are going to "die" any time soon, but boy does it get tiring seeing Meltzer et al. doing these cartwheels every week to say things really aren't that bad actually. Tickets are down, buys for the last PPV were down, ratings are down... even YT views are down. And he never even talks about the fact that all of this is happening in a year in which they signed Okada, Ospreay and the former Sasha Banks to big money contracts to have the exact opposite influence on the numbers.

Dave will try to find. Every excuse in the book. To defend AEW ratings.

I’m 31, I find myself rolling my eyes more and more at AEW. It feels stale because it’s the same people doing the same thing almost every week and I honestly could care less because I’m not invested in the characters.

dave almost shed a tear when bryan started talking about the booking you could hear it in his voice he was offended by the mere suggestion tonys booking hasnt evolved

I try to support AEW but in recent times it just hasn't been good enough to watch regularly. I'm watching more football, F1 and IndyCar recently

I'm part of the 18-49 demo, but stopped watching for two reasons that could be factors leading to the lower ratings - my free time is increasingly limited and I cancelled cable due to how expensive it is. I would still be watching their TV shows if not for those reasons regardless of the perception of the product.

The booking has done nothing to convince you the show is must see or can’t miss. Everything is inconsequential.

It’s a terrible show and the Bucks aren’t over

Didnt dave say the last 2 years when aew was winning the demo is thats all that matters. Now he basically going back on that

They blamed the nba playoffs, and then Dave says how nba ratings are down this year.

They will never admit it’s a bad show! And that Bucks angle is not working at all! There’s no real continuity to anything, just random people wrestling randomly. Tony is a horrible booker. Dave just won’t admit it

What’s crazy is how much Dave insulted WCW for its shortcomings but looks the other way when AEW is doing the EXACT same thing.

Tony khan (Wearing a hot dog suit while booking the NWO if they looked like middle schoolers, his two new male gamechangers as mid-carders, his top female gamechanger to never do the only thing she’s good at and wrestle, and his AEW world champion on an island) - “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this”

Young Bucks are a huge problem. Random "dream matches" with no story is a problem. Unknown wrestlers from other promotions wrestling on TV without buildup is a problem. But Tony Khan booking is the main problem

Thier is nothing weird on the ratings drop. The booking is horrific, they are pushing the wrong people. Isn’t it obvious? Dave keeps refusing to believe that. Lol

Tony needs to be removed as head booker immediately and they need to give the book to Scott D'amore , and the bucks need to be stripped of their EVP titles and creative control

No, they have a Tony Khan problem, a young bucks problem, a Jack Perry problem, an Orange Cassidy problem, a Chris Jericho problem.

When are they going to admit that the bucks and Jericho are a turn off? I know they are their “friends” but as “reporters” it’s not that difficult to understand why people are turning off the show and not coming back.

Hmmm... I wonder what happened approximately 4 weeks ago to drive people away from AEW? I'm just completely stumped!

Dave almost admitted to an AEW problem, he was close, but it wouldn’t be a RU-vid clip without AEW excuses…it just can’t be an error AEW has made, as in his mind it’s the better wrestling show. So it can do no wrong.

The fact is,is that the honeymoon stage is over, when they started the fans were dying for something else, they hated Vince and his repetitive cheesey product, and were willing to accept anything being competitive, and now Vince is gone, the WWE is cool again and Tony Khan and also Dave have completely nerded wrestling out so badly that it's starting to catch up

The booking for Swerve has been atrocious since he won the title. The company treats him like a mid-card champion, because he might as well be with the Bucks and Okada taking up screen time.

Yes, they do have a problem. The booking is terrible, they have no idea how to create a star or get people over, and nobody cares about the bucks or jack perry, it's not that difficult to figure out but these two will keep creating excuses to protect Tony's feelings.

So Dave’s also going to ignore the empty seats too?

Pretty narcissistic to think the Bucks were over enough to suddenly become roughshod top heels. They literally didn't do anything for a couple years, and clearly don't have the size or look to be taken seriously as top heels. And maybe Jungle Boy could take down that hair bun and stop blowing the greatest opportunity he might ever receive in wrestling.

I'm probably an anomaly but I'm in that age bracket and I started watching AEW because New Japan was starting to get so stale and I was sick of every match needing to be "epic". Now all the worst guys from NJPW are in AEW (Ospreay, White, Juice, Ibushi, Fletcher) and a lot of them are getting big pushes. I liked the idea that investing your time long-term as an AEW fan meant you would start to get to see their own guys rise to the top. Other than MJF they haven't let that happen -- the fact Moxley has three world title reigns and Darby has zero speaks to this issue. It's hard to fully support a company that is constantly undercutting its own identity.

That Freaking Melzer is Full of Sh.. How could he still defend that promotion so much

Most AEW fans I knew used to faithfully defend AEW, that was 2 years ago, fast forward today, they told me it's not possible to defend AEW any longer, Tony Khan repeatedly making dumb immature comments every month, The Bucks, Hangman and Jungle Boy's toxic indierific Recida childishness have exposed them as a company impossible to defend.

If THIS platform is speaking badly i.e. TRUTHFULLY about AEW, you KNOW they're in bad shape creatively.

The NBA, the NHL, and the new gas station that opened down the street

This is 17 minutes of excuses and coping. Also known as top tier journalism.

I think what's happened is that after two and a half years of repeatedly pointing out the problems with the presentation of the characters and stories, people are finally, really, disconnecting from the product. Repeatedly and stubbornly putting the best match on first, frantic builds the last two weeks before a PPV because they spent months doing nothing, releasing AEW original talent for rentals, having too many belts, featuring non-AEW stars week after week, lack of vignettes to build characters and stories, and most of all, chaotic hot/cold booking, the valid AEW criticisms mostly came from those of us who wanted AEW to succeed. People are probably just deciding that nothing is going to change, and moving on.

Dave still finding excuses is honestly embarassing.

“If you ignore the decline, it’s practically the same BRYAAAAN”

TK's decision to air the CM punk footage happened just over 4 weeks ago. I was starting to get tired of the booking, but that decision really soured me on the product. I don't even like CM punk, but that decision just made TK look immature and incompetent, like something a kid would do. I still watch because all my favourite wrestlers happen to be signed there, but I can definitely see myself turning it off soon if things don't pick up. I don't have faith in TK's ability to book anymore. If he is able to sign all the big names he should be able to hire a competent booker.

There are no characters or personalities that people can relate to unlike during the WWE attitude era. The problem with the Bucks is that most fans would not be intimidated by them in a real life altercation. Outside of MJF and Toni Storm, nobody is really into character development. The AEW crowd and fanbase doesn't help either.

Too many wrestlers, too many belts. AEW was more over with a quarter of their roster. Remember the 4 pillars, remember when the show felt like it had direction cause they booked the whole show around a strong group of 10 wrestlers that you could follow and get invested in? Now they have a rotating group of like 40 wrestlers that they cycle through and they all wrestle the New Japan style and they're all given 15-20 minutes and none of it matters! Undisputed Kingdom was at the center of the largest storyline AEW had all last spring, summer, and fall and that stable is barely featured and there's zero continuity to their appearances

Crazy how so many people take time out of their way to watch these videos and expose themselves in the comments. It's like people are allergic to listening, learning, growing.

In words of jim cornette Lazy booking!!!!

Thanks guys

This video gets 2.0 stars!!!!

AEW has to create interesting stories that keep people watching.

They are saying that because the playoffs are on, that's the reason that the ratings are down. Its because the product is absolutely shitty. And they think its because of other sports 🤦

I hope when I’m 64 I look more like Jim than Dave 🤞

Tony Khan is a terrible booker who produces wrestling television that is not appealing to an American viewing audience. Blaming sports playoffs has always been a weak excuse

Here is a simple explanation of the difference in quality of Booking. Kazuchika Okada, who is being paid 10 times the money and is 10 times the star that Tama Tonga is, seems like a smaller star than Tama Tonga right now. Tama is straight away inserted into a storyline woth KO and Randy, 2 top stars. Okada is looking like a lackey to the Bucks and just doing good matches

AEW will never grown beyond its niche audience. That has been proven over five years. The only person to increase merchandise, interest and viewers was fired; while the rest of the circus works once or twice a month and gets checks. AEW is Wrestling Make A Wish for wrestlers.

Dave, how can you be such a hypocrite? For years, you have said that the key demo is what the network is looking at, and now you're saying that if you removed the key demo, they did fine? Man, make it make sense. Tell things how they are. This is why you keep losing credibility. Also, the playoffs excuse is bs at this point. The playoffs happen every year, and their numbers haven’t been this bad before. That's a reflection on their product, not just that there's something better on tv.

Didn't Jericho have an entire gimmick based around the demo because of Meltzer saying it was the important part of ratings?

This is the same guy who said Osprey, Okada, and Sasha were going to draw big. It doesnt matter who you have when the booking and shows are bad. Plain and simple. 2000 Wcw was bad also and they had big names. BOOKING is the common theme here

9:33 dave sounded like a hound dog 😂😂😂.

I used to like AEW. My two cents, AEW is telling its best story right now, but the Bucks as heels look like rejects from a high school play. If they don’t take their heel persona seriously, it’ll just continue to be a train wreck If MJF can take over as the heel lead against TK and kick Bucks out of the faction, you have potential

1-The match outcomes are predictable, so there’s no tension or drama in them. You always know who will win/lose. 2- Theres no interesting storylines. 3- The Bucks (main heels now) are cringe, and very bad at what they do.

No one can say definitively for sure, in terms of unless you're actually there, no one can say what the legitimate issue is I do have some reasonable suggestions though, as to what the issues could be leading to this overall issue From a creative standpoint, the issue seems to be pretty obvious. Tony began booking shows like Vince has the last several years announcing one or two matches most of the time one, essentially right from the beginning of the pay-per-view build time frame, and then throwing a bunch of last minute matches together, within 2 weeks or less of the upcoming Pay-Per-View event. This trend started going into the pay-per-view where the was a match with Adam Cole, and Adam Hangman Page. Starting with that card, that's where the overall booking issues, the long-term booking issues with Tony's company truly became apparent, and sadly became locked in to where we are now, creatively speaking that is Yes they were storyline mismanagement before, but prior to that specific pay-per-view, they were individual occurrences. Sense that pay-per-view, these booking issues are systemic. Tony claimed he would never operate a program that way, he claimed he would learn from the competition's mistakes now he makes them weekly. Tony also claimed he would utilize his performance better than Vince had, specifically within the last few years... Tony implied more than once going into the creation of his company, that the state of WWE the state of the industry as a whole pretty well as he saw it, that's why he got into the wrestling space in the first place.. Tony stated multiple times that, he would never make mistakes that WWE had in recent years, when it came to creative, and the overall use, and or, misuse of talent... Being bluntly honest Tony has pretty well failed spectacularly on both counts, for at least 2 years now, and Counting.... The bottom line when it comes to all that is, when you promise to be different than, you have to be different than.... If you become what you oppose, and in fact do so, worse than even your competitor competitor had previously, well then, you're seen as an even greater hypocrite... Which then makes you worse then the other in a lot of people's eyes going forward, until, or unless positive change, begins to take place... Which to this point, certainly not enough positive change, certainly not enough yet has taken place... Unless that changes long-term, Tony & Company, they'll likely still struggle significantly in key area's, in both key areas of their business, and the on-screen product as well... Couple all of that, with all the behind-the-scenes issue's of the last couple years, including the last couple months... More specifically,to all that backstage drama,, take into account, how nothing was properly handled in a reasonable manner whatsoever.... Stating that all of it, was unprofessional, immature, daycare like, and then some, stating all of that, that's just being bluntly honest... It's genuinely been embarrassing to watch all of this unfold quite frankly, it's wholly embarrassing.... Couple all this backstage drama with everything else that I've referenced, and I would suggest, that it's obvious why, why Tony's company is in the shape that it's in currently, as sad as that is to say..... It's just a shame all the way around.... Lastly Dave, make up your mind. Are the ratings, and attendance, are they problematic, or are they not? You can't have it both ways it's either a problem, or it's not.... Genuinely, stop talking out of both sides of your mouth it's not an either or scenario... It's one or the other, stop with the flip-flopping already..... Here, I will help you out, by stating the obvious.... Yes the ratings are pathetic, they can't even beat Raw on a good day, the overwhelming majority of the time.... Not to mention, their attendance, it's even worse than that, and has been for a good while now... To that particular part of the spectrum, I wouldn't be surprised, if the attendance and rating's issue's, I wouldn't be surprised, if both were directly linked to everything I've listed previously above.... Honestly, I would not be surprised in the least, if that were indeed the case..... I would be shocked actually, truth be told, I would be shocked if it were not ... I would be shocked, if at least on some level, I would be shocked, if at least on one level, I would be shocked, if I wasn't right to some degree at least anyway.... It all seem's rather logical, so I mean.... Far more logical than anything Dave and his fence sitting approach is attempting to convey anyway, so at least, there's that..... Here's an idea Dave, actually be a journalist. Stop being a would-be, fence sitting would be politician.... How about you stop being a would-be politician, with a gossip rag, and actually do, your alleged vocation How about you actually do that for once, Dave & Company, how about you consider doing that finally.... Genuinely, spare us this nonsensical jargon from now on please..... Just do your actual job's from now on please....

The big angle in AEW is the Young Bucks. For 2 straight years, basically every Young Bucks segment has cratered in the ratings. But lets not see a correlation here

Dave just can’t admit that the Bucks and Jack Perry just cant draw. He literally seems to spend most of the conversation mumbling out justifications and excuses. What’s the excuse going to be once the playoffs end? “Nobody’s watching because of Summer” “Nobody’s watching because of Football season” “ Nobody’s watching because of the holidays” AEW desperately needs a focused episodic direction.

Numbers are down because they have no stats right now. Big draws are hurt and Mox is buys being IWGP champ which is cool but come on. Swerve deserves so much more of a bigger deal for being champ

Daves face looks like a Halloween sprit store mask😂😂😂

So overall message is; aew will never be wrong

Its really unfortunate that the NBA decided to have playoffs this year.... Like they don't face the playoffs last year and the year before. The ratings are down because they arent putting on a good show

when you turn the young bucks into your top heels & top stars what do you expect. everytime the bucks appear on tv 200,000 viewers change the channel. Tony khan saw that and thought "This show needs more young bucks".

As an AEW fan, I'll say this. The product is getting worse and worse. Of course the matches are great, but many people that watch, want the great stories. Nothing against the wrestling talent. Tom Cruise made some bad movies, all we want is mission impossible and top gun. The Elite story isn't convincing. We don't even need to see ratings, everybody knows the product is a broken record.

Dave will jump through every hoop and move every mountain before he ever admits that there’s an issue with the Bucks and the booking.

"If you forget this number and imagine some other number and never mind the fact that the show is garbage, they're doing great" - Dave Meltzer

“Aside from 18-34 there’s not even a drop” is wild