Ratings: WWE NXT Hits 5-Year Audience High, Will Trent Returns to Largest Audience Ever

matt webb mitovich

Wed, 8 Jan 2025, 8:50 pm·2-min read

WWE NXT on The CW appears to have enjoyed some afterglow from Monday Night Raw‘s much-ballyhooed debut on Netflix, which also featured a visit from The Rock.

WWE NXT‘s “New Year’s Evil” event on Tuesday night drew 957,000 total viewers to The CW, making it the series’ most-watched episode in more than five years.

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And in Adults 18-49 (with 341,000 of ’em), WWE NXT outdrew Fox’s Kitchen Nightmares/Doc slate, as well as CBS’ FBI: International rerun in the 9 o’clock hour.

Elsewhere on Tuesday:

Opposite CBS drama reruns, ABC’s Will Trent Season 3 opener (with 5.9 million viewers) easily hit a series high in audience, as did the winter premiere of the freshman drama High Potential (5.7 mil). Now airing at 10 pm, The Rookie‘s Season 7 premiere (3.4 mil) was up juuuust a tick from last year’s average.

NBC’s Deal or No Deal Island opened Season 2 with 2.7 million viewers, matching its Season 1 average; The Irrational returned from the holiday break to 2.2 mil, matching its series low.

Fox’s Kitchen Nightmares returned to 1.6 mil, followed by the Doc series premiere’s 2.2 mil.

Turning to Monday, Brilliant Minds‘ season-ending Monday-night double-pump — leading out of a rerun, but also airing opposite reruns — averaged 2.7 million viewers and a 0.2 demo rating, up a tick in audience and steady in the demo versus its fall finale.

Season-to-date, Brilliant Minds is averaging 4.9 million viewers and a 0.38 demo rating (with Live+7 playback). Out of the eight dramas NBC has aired so far this TV season, it ranks No. 5 in viewers (trailing the #OneChicago trifecta and Law & Order: SVU), but last in the demo. Brilliant Minds is up 29% in audience (and steady in demo) vs. The Voice‘s spring 2024 lead-out (Deal or No Deal Island).

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The Live+Same Day numbers reported in TVLine’s daily-ish ratings column do NOT reflect a television program’s overall performance, given the increased use of delayed playback via DVR and streaming platforms, plus out-of-home viewing. These numbers instead aim to simply illustrate trends or superlatives. Steve Harvey is not a judge or lawyer and merely offers an alternative forum of dispute resolution