“I’ve tasted blood,” Tony Khan opens up about the possibility of expanding AEW Dynamite to three hours, similar to WWE Raw

Will AEW Dynamite become a three-hour show like WWE Raw?

“I’ve tasted blood,” Tony Khan opens up about the possibility of expanding AEW Dynamite to three hours, similar to WWE Raw

Tony Khan wishes to make AEW Dynamite 3 hour long (via AEW)

Despite AEW’s decline in viewership over the past few months, AEW Dynamite continues to perform well compared to other shows. AEW CEO, Tony Khan recently revealed that he planned to further capitalize on this success, and was perhaps looking at extending the length of their oldest show to three hours.

Speaking to CBS Sports, Khan said that he wanted to keep AEW Dynamite as strong as possible. He referred to Raw as ‘the two-hour wrestling show that went to three hours’ and claimed that the move did not end well for WWE, looking at its history. Regardless, five hours of weekly programming was the bare minimum for the AEW President.

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Tony Khan still considered extending the show to three hours a lucrative opportunity. He asserted that out of all their shows, they got the most viewership and ratings per hour for AEW Dynamite. Further, he considered it an interesting conversation to have regarding how many nights a week should be allocated to programming.

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I've tasted blood and want more so I could easily be sold on doing more than five hours of programming.
Tony Khan via CBS Sports

Khan was struggling with the idea of deciding between five and six hours of weekly programming. The 41-year-old said that he had tasted blood, and he wanted more. Therefore, he could be easily sold on the idea of doing more than five hours of shows.

Can Tony Khan successfully pull off a 3-hour AEW Dynamite?

In 2012, Vince McMahon and WWE decided to extend the run time of Monday Night Raw to three hours. Although initially deemed a great idea by fans, their excitement soon faded away. The show was filled with ad breaks, fillers, and recap segments. Therefore, there was barely 90 minutes of content on each episode.

AEW Dynamite
AEW Dynamite (via AEW)

With the quality of WWE programming also dropping in the late 2010s, a three-hour show felt like a chore to watch and started to draw low ratings. However, it has worked well for the company from a financial point of view. They have been able to squeeze out much more money from broadcasting networks and gain more total viewership.

If this change was to take place, AEW would see six hours of weekly programming. Three on Dynamite, Two on Collision, and one hour of Rampage alongside the two hours of Ring of Honor tapings broadcasted weekly. AEW has a better way to combat some of these problems. With the picture-in-picture feature on WB networks, ad breaks should not be as big of a problem for the Jacksonville-based promotion.

Several fans opined that Tony Khan should focus on the dropping programming timing of the current show, rather than trying to extend it. However, extending the show timings will allow new storylines to develop properly and benefit several rising stars who do not get much TV time at the moment.

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