Tony Khan had a reason for keeping commercials to a minimum during the opening stretch of AEW Dynamite. He expected extra viewers to tune in out of curiosity, and he didn’t want a wall of ads giving them an excuse to leave before AEW could hook them.
During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer explained that AEW intentionally ran very little commercial time during roughly the first 50 minutes of Dynamite. The strategy was built around the expectation that there would be increased interest coming off the previous show, along with Will Ospreay’s first interview.
“What they did, if you remember the show on Wednesday, in the first 50 or so minutes, they had very little commercial time. And this was a strategic move by Tony Khan with the idea that he expected that there’d be a lot of curiosity coming off of the show. And will Ospreay’s first interview and all this.”
Khan’s plan was essentially to keep the first hour moving and make it harder for viewers to click away. AEW wasn’t completely commercial-free, but the interruptions were kept much lighter than usual.
“So, so the idea is go as it’s, it wasn’t commercial free but have very limited commercial time in the first hour in particular and get a big first hour which they got.”
The tradeoff was that AEW still had to air those commercials somewhere. Meltzer said much of that inventory was pushed deeper into the broadcast and into the lengthy overrun.
“And then do a lot of the commercials in the overrun.”
That decision also meant the final portion of the show took a bigger hit than a normal overrun because AEW had saved so much advertising for later.
“The overrun would have hurt more than usual because they had done, they had saved commercial time for that overrun period to give them the, the less commercial time in the first hour.”
The strategy came on a night where Dynamite finished with 796,000 viewers and a 0.15 rating in the key demo. Meltzer said Nielsen listed it as the show’s biggest audience since 2024, although the recent changes to Nielsen’s measurement system make older comparisons harder to judge directly.
“It was based on Nielsen. You know, it’s the most viewers for a show since 2024. But I’m sure it was really, really good numbers wise.”
Khan basically made the call to sacrifice some breathing room later in the show so AEW could keep as many curious viewers as possible during the opening hour. The commercials still had to get paid back eventually, but AEW got the strong start Khan was looking for.
Do you think Tony Khan made the right call by cutting back commercials early to keep viewers hooked, or should AEW spread the ads out more evenly? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
