Shawn Michaels weighs in on WWE NXT ratings.
During the NXT No Mercy media call on Thursday, WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels was asked how he balances keeping tabs on ratings and focusing on the creative direction of the brand.
“Obviously, where I’m at now is different than where I was at the beginning,” Michaels said. “I think at the beginning, you look at those ratings every week. I’ll say this, I’m not a numbers guy by any stretch, but I’ve learned more about numbers. Two times I was focused on ratings, the one time you’re the champion holding the title for this company, and then when you’re the guy running the show that has to get those ratings.
“So at the beginning, I did. I focused on them quite a bit. Now, I understand the long game, I understand the goal. Obviously, we’re always thrilled when they go up. That’s the thing, right now we have been trending up and trending up in those demographics that everybody speaks of, significantly. We’re talking 26 percent in the 18-49 and probably 61 percent in the 18-34.
“When I first had to step in for Hunter and then eventually took over here in NXT, the conversation I had with Vince is him wanting me to focus on that 18-34. I will say this despite other stories that have been out there, it was never being compared to anybody else. It was just him wanting us to focus on the 18-34 because he wanted us to have a younger demographic. That’s the one that has grown significantly in these last two years, so we’re very proud of that.”
Toot Toot
Michaels noted that with being in the television business, the strategy is to always get their numbers up. Luckily, the main roster integration has helped.
“An analogy I’d like to share, we feel like the main roster for us is kind of like a Trojan horse,” Michaels continued. “We come in with the main roster person, but then out of the Trojan horse comes all these NXT stars that we’re hoping — again, when a Becky Lynch comes in here and gives us a well over 800,000, and, heck, in her segment over the millions — we hope that what we do is we expose a number of NXT talent to them that a percentage of those people come back and they see something that they enjoy in our product.”
Michaels wants fans to see that NXT strives to do many different things like use many different off-site locations for segments, in addition to incorporating variety, humor, and great wrestling.
“That’s what we hope happens in this process. Each time we use a main roster talent that will obviously get us viewers that we didn’t have before, a certain segment of them continue to watch our product and enjoy it,” Michaels reiterated. “As of right now, that’s been working and working quite successfully. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but it’s been going really well for us.”
The WWE Hall of Famer compared this era of NXT as being the closest thing to the Attitude Era. While he knows that will earn some eye-rolls, he’s proud of what the show has accomplished as of late.
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