WWE Raw ratings rebound following end of playoff season
After mostly bad news in ratings during playoff season, WWE had its best numbers in two months with last night’s episode of Raw averaging 3.10 million viewers.
It was the best number since the April 17th show did 3.33 million viewers, and was up 22 percent from last week’s 2.53 million, going against the Golden State Warriors closing out the NBA finals. If nothing else, this shows just how significantly the NBA game and the playoffs have been hurting Raw this year.
The number is likely based on heightened interest from the Samoa Joe vs. Brock Lesnar program, even though Lesnar and Paul Heyman weren’t on the show, and even though the final hour was the lowest of the three, they kept the audience better than usual even going 18 minutes past the hour for the reveal of the Enzo Amore/Big Cass angle.
Raw was first on cable, beating Tucker Carlson tonight on Fox News at 2.87 million viewers for the top spot.
There has been a pattern where the ups and down of Raw are usually mirrored on SmackDown, and this big improvement plus coming after a SmackDown-exclusive PPV that garnered more interest than usual for the brand should lead to greatly improved numbers tonight as well.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 3.08 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 3.20 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 3.03 million viewers