Raw ratings up for post-Roadblock episode

Getting a post-PPV bump, Raw did 2.95 million viewers last night, a solid seven percent increase from last week.

While the show started higher, with 3.06 million in hour one as compared to 2.93 million last week, the key was retaining the viewers through the three hours.

What was notable about last night’s show was the different way fans viewed it. Male fans grew, particularly those between the ages of 12 to 34, where there was an amazing 19 percent growth from hour one to three. However, this growth was reversed among women, who tuned out, losing 19 percent of the viewers between the first and third hour between those same ages.

Because the audience is heavily male skewed, even though overall viewership did decline as the show went on, the overall decline was less than last week. Essentially the tag team match with Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns vs. Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens was a positive with men between the ages of 12 to 34 and a negative with women in the same age range.

The Charlotte vs. Bayley match in hour three probably wasn’t a big difference maker because it wasn’t announced ahead of time, so if women had tuned out earlier it wasn’t because of that match as they didn’t know it was going to happen.

Last night’s football game between the Carolina Panthers and Washington Redskins did 11.21 million viewers, which is at normal levels so it wouldn’t have been a big factor. Raw ended up in 8th place for the night on cable.

The three hours were:

8 p.m. 3.06 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.97 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.83 million viewers

Here’s a chart from Paul Fontaine that looks at the last 10 weeks of Raw ratings compared to previous years:

And here’s another that examines the past 20 weeks of hourly ratings and compares year-over-year declines in viewership: