Chris Jericho explains why the Key Demo is more important than overall viewers. AEW is still behind WWE in overall ratings but have made significant progress in the demos.
The WWE has been around for several decades. It is only natural that the promotion will garner more viewers than any of its contemporaries including AEW. However, the Tony Khan led promotion has made major strides recently and regularly outmatches WWE in the 18-49 demographic.
Also read: Chris Jericho recalls shutting Sami Zayn down while planning Money in the Bank 2016 match
During a recent conversation with Sports Media Chris Jericho explained why this was more important to AEW than outdoing WWE in the overall viewership. He also revealed the reason why he began calling himself the Demo God, a moniker he employed during the Wednesday Night Wars with NXT.
Chris Jericho explains why the Key Demo is more important than overall viewers
“Not to be blasé about it, but I really don’t care [about NXT’s statistics]. It doesn’t matter to me. Even when we were in the wrestling war, quote unquote, on the Wednesday nights, we never followed what NXT did. Now when the demos came out — that’s why I started ‘Demo God’ because everyone was talking about NXT. Sometimes they’d be beating us in overall numbers, and I was like, ‘You guys don’t get it. The demo, we’re killing them.’
[They’d say] ‘Oh well it doesn’t matter, it’s all about [the viewership]’ And I realized very quickly, years ago, it’s not about [viewership] — OK, there’s a million people watching this show and 500,000 people watching this one. The demo of the million draws 200,000 [viewers] and the demo of the 500,000 show is 400,000. The 500,000 wins. And you’re like, ‘how does that make sense?’
Because the demo is what people base the advertising rates on. It’s just the way of the world, 18 to 49 [the key demo] is the ‘bread and butter.’ If you got a bunch of 12-year-olds watching, that’s good because they’ll grow into 18s. If you got a bunch of 60-year-olds watching — not to be classless — but nobody really cares, that’s not the demo they’re going for.”
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