Reason Behind Fewer Commercials on September 2 AEW Dynamite Revealed

Tony Khan cut commercial time during roughly the first 50 minutes of the September 2 AEW Dynamite. Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said the move was a deliberate call by AEW's president. Khan expected a spike in interest following All In: London and wanted to hold the audience for Will Ospreay's first promo as AEW World Champion after winning the title at the pay-per-view. '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.' The show wasn't entirely commercial-free, but AEW cut way back on breaks during the first hour to build a bigger initial audience. '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 had to stack more commercials later in the broadcast. Meltzer said several were pushed into Dynamite's extended overrun. 'And then do a lot of the commercials in the overrun.' '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.' Wrestling Observer *LIVE* | Bryan Alvarez wrestling news YouTube The episode aired from the Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, Texas, ran a 24-minute overrun, and averaged 796,000 viewers on TBS with a 0.15 rating in 18-49. Dynamite finished second among cable programming that night. The numbers do not include viewers who watched simultaneously on HBO Max.