Tony Khan Open To Expanding AEW Dynamite To 3 Hours
Could Tony Khan expand AEW Dynamite to three hours?
All Elite Wrestling air five hours of programming per week, with two hour live blocks for Dynamite and Collision on Wednesday and Saturdays respectively, with the pre-recorded Rampage airing in a one hour block on Fridays.
Schedule changes have seen AEW run a three hour block, with a double bill of Collision and live Rampage airing back on May 11 due to NHL and NBA playoffs, whilst a double live Dynamite and Rampage aired the week prior.
Speaking of the breathing room this block allowed for storytelling and scheduling, AEW President Tony Khan noted to CBS Sports that he’d be open to turning Dynamite into a three hour show in the future:
"I love being able to do more follow-up with things that happened earlier in the night with more time," Khan said. "Being able to cover more wrestlers and tell more stories, utilise more of the roster. I think it gives more opportunities when we have that three-hour block."
Khan continued: "You want to keep Dynamite as strong as possible. You look at the history of what happened with the two-hour wrestling show when that show was expanded to three hours. It's interesting right now per hour the most we get per hour for any of our TV shows is Dynamite. Either way, five-hour weekly programming is the absolute minimum.
"So in some ways, you would say, 'That would be a very lucrative opportunity.' I think it's a very interesting conversation to have about how many nights a week you allocate to programming. Is five hours the best? Should we do six?"
During the Monday Night Wars, WCW Nitro went from two to three hours starting in 1998, whilst WWE Raw has run as a three-hour show for several years now after over a decade running as a two-hour live show. Whilst some vocal fans aren't keen on the length of Raw it allows for greater ad revenue for WWE and the broadcaster alike.
