WWE Raw ratings down on Labor Day
Going against college football on Monday night, Raw dropped to 1.65 million viewers and a 0.49 rating in 18-49. The 18-49 number was the lowest since the NBA playoffs.
This will be the start of Raw’s lowest ratings period for the year, which should become more evident next week going against the NFL every Monday night.
We don’t have numbers for competition but the usual college football over Labor Day weekend does hurt Raw noticeably, as it did this year.
Raw was down eight percent in viewers from last week and down 13 percent in 18-49. That can largely be attributed to college football and some to the holiday. This is actually more significant because it also was two days after the PLE event from Berlin, so a normal episode would have shown even more of a drop.
While Labor Day often starts low and then grows in hour two, that wasn’t the case here generally. The peak here was for the Drew McIntyre-CM Punk segment at 9 p.m. (at 1.87 million viewers), while the main event of Damian Priest & Jey Uso vs. JD McDonagh & Finn Balor in a non-title match did 1.49 million viewers.
From one year ago, under similar competition circumstances, Labor Day and college football, Raw was down three percent in viewers and down three percent in 18-49. But given homes lost by cable, in actual ratings as based on homes that actually get USA, this would be up three percent in viewers and up seven percent in 18-49. So from a ratings standpoint, they are still in the plus column from last year.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 1.77 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 1.70 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.51 million viewers