AEW and Warner Bros. Discovery are continuing to explore innovative broadcast formats during major sporting events.
Over the past weekend, AEW Collision aired as two separate one-hour segments—one on Saturday and another on Sunday—immediately following coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament. According to Andrew Zarian of Beyond the Bell, AEW and WBD are now considering a different scheduling experiment during the upcoming NHL Playoffs, which could potentially involve a four-hour special.
“Spoke to someone a couple weeks ago, and they were telling me that these are experiments that Warner is willing to try,” Zarian revealed. “College basketball takes precedence, the NBA All Star weekend takes precedence. Rather than canceling the show, let’s put it on a different time slot and see if we could do something with it, maybe you’re going to attract different types of fans.”
He further elaborated on the potential scheduling changes for AEW programming during the NHL Playoffs.
“We have another opportunity for this during the Stanley Cup, during the NHL Playoffs. So listen, anything could change here,” he said.
“I heard from two sides, from Warner, that during the Stanley Cup, there’s going to be an opportunity to do something very big. And the way that it was presented to me is that it is a possibility of a four-hour special happening.”
While Zarian emphasized that the special might not necessarily be a full four hours, it would still involve an extended block of programming.
“The idea is still soft. It could be just Dynamite on and then followed by a Collision, so a four-hour block.”
The NHL Playoffs are set to commence following the conclusion of the regular season on April 17. TNT holds the exclusive broadcasting rights for the Stanley Cup Finals, which are projected to start in late May or early June.
Zarian also shared insights on WBD’s current perception of AEW’s performance, indicating that executives remain optimistic.
“I’ve been hearing very positive stuff from WBD, and I’ve brought up the ratings and the internet chatter to them,” he stated. “It doesn’t even resonate. The messaging on the internet’s not even resonating with these people and they’re in key positions there.”
(H/T to Andrew Zarian of Beyond The Bell and Ian Carey of F4WOnline.com)
