WWE Raw draws record-low rating in 18-49 demo
Due to monster competition from the New England Patriots vs. Buffalo Bills NFL game, Raw on Monday set its all-time record low with a 0.35 rating in 18-49, breaking the old record of 0.39 set on October 18.
It was noteworthy because, like SmackDown and Rampage on Friday, the show had a huge drop in 18-34, although with those shows it was men, while Raw was down with men but collapsed with women.
It was back to the usual pattern with more people watching hour one. The three-hour drop of 10 percent was not major itself, and due to the over 50 audience, the show’s largest by far, being well above usual levels, the total audience of 1.60 million viewers was the ninth lowest in history.
The football game did 14.91 million viewers and a 4.49 in 18-49 between airings on both ESPN and ESPN2.
Raw was eighth in 18-49, trailing six NFL-related shows on ESPN and Below Deck on Bravo. The women’s audience in 18-49 being at record low saw the show only finish 13th in women 18-49. It was seventh in men 18-49, trailing only shows on ESPN. It was eighth in 18-34, 10th in women 12-34, and eighth in men 12-34.
Below Deck on Bravo did 1.22 million viewers and a 0.40 in 18-49, the first time in a long time that an entertainment show on Monday has beaten Raw.
Raw finished 19th for the night in total viewers, behind only NFL-related programming on ESPN, news programming on Fox News, and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.
The 10 percent first-to-third hour drop in total viewers was normal levels. For 18-49, the first hour did a 0.38, the second hour did a 0.35, and a third hour did a 0.33.
As far as the keys to the drop, from hour one to three, women 18-49 dropped 21 percent, men 18-49 dropped eight percent, teenage girls dropped 45 percent, teenage boys dropped 38 percent, and over 50 dropped 10 percent.
The big drops with younger viewers in a third hour built around a Becky Lynch vs. Liv Morgan Raw Women’s Championship match tells a story that a lot of people will be very upset about, especially as the culmination of a several week-long program.
Another factor is the Vince McMahon back on the show increase was gone after two weeks.
Raw was down five percent in viewers, 22 percent in 18-49, and 31 percent in 18-34 from last week. The key is the rise in over 50 viewers.
As compared to the same week last year, the show was down eight percent in viewers, 30 percent in 18-49 and 38 percent in 18-34.
As compared to last week, women 18-34 were down 49 percent and women 35-49 were down 24 percent.
This all came on a night when television viewing was extremely high, not low.
Raw’s three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 1.67 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 1.64 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.49 million viewers