WWE Raw ratings up for final USA Network episode
The final episode of WWE Raw on USA Network did its second best numbers of football season on Monday, averaging 1.60 million viewers and drawing a 0.53 rating in 18-49.
It was second to only the December 2 show, and this was more impressive given the NFL competition with the San Francisco 49ers vs. Detroit Lions game doing 22.12 million viewers and a 5.17 in 18-49 (11.97 million/2.02 on ABC and 10.15 million/3.15 on ESPN). The total NFL audience was one of the five best games since 2006.
The rating was a combination of the WWE product itself being very strong and clearly the last episode got a lot of early curiosity based on the strong first hour.
Raw beat everything on television but NFL-related shows on the two stations and was fifth on cable for the night behind NFL-related shows.
The show was up 10 percent in viewers and up 26 percent in 18-49 from last week, against far stronger competition.
From one year ago, Raw was down nine percent in viewers and down 11 percent in 18-49. Last year’s episode featured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and while not advertised ahead of time, word got out late and led to giant numbers even though last year’s show was on January 1 meaning it went against the Rose Bowl and later the Sugar Bowl games.
But factoring in the drop in homes getting USA, even those drops are just barely above the level of the drop in homes and both this year and last year had extremely strong football competition. Last year was also on a worse night overall, but numbers of shows with Dwayne Johnson are a different league.
Besides Raw no entertainment show on cable topped the 0.15 of 90 Day Fiance, so Raw well over tripled the highest non-NFL number.
The two hours were:
- 8 p.m. 1.67 million
- 9 p.m. 1.53 million