WWE Raw ratings down against huge college football title game
Going head-to-head with the college football championship game, Raw last night did 2.03 million viewers, the second lowest in modern history for a non-holiday show and lowest for a live show.
Raw attempted to load up this week to avoid a bad number, but with the LSU-Clemson game doing 25.00 million on ESPN and 381,000 on ESPN 2, roughly double a good Monday Night Football game, there was only so much that could have helped. The audience was down 12.7 percent from last year’s Raw which was head-to-head with a championship game that did 24.33 million viewers on ESPN and 666,000 on ESPN 2.
The first two hours of Raw beat everything on cable except ESPN football related programming in 18-49, but the third hour did less than two other shows, Below Deck and Love and Hip Hop 10.
Raw finished 15th overall on cable, but beat everything that wasn’t news or college football related.
In audience loss, women 18-49 fell 16 percent from the first-to-third hour, men 18-49 fell 15 percent, teenage girls fell 38 percent, and teenage boys increased nine percent while over 50 fell 14 percent.
The only episode in history that was non-holiday and did worse was the December 23 taped show that did 1.84 million viewers.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 2.22 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 2.06 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.81 million viewers