WWE Raw ratings up for Royal Rumble fallout
The Raw after the Royal Rumble averaged 1.86 million viewers and drew an 0.47 rating in the 18-49 demo last night, putting it in first place for the night on cable.
It was the best viewership for Raw since the week after SummerSlam last year, but the 18-49 number has to be considered a disappointment, as it was barely up from last week’s 0.46 and there were weeks against the NFL that beat it in the fall.
Raw’s two closest challenging shows were 1,000 Pound Sisters on TLC (1.97 million viewers and an 0.40 in 18-49) and Below Deck on Bravo (1.29 million viewers and an 0.39) against hour one.
ESPN had college basketball that did 958,000 viewers and an 0.23 in 18-49.
Raw’s first-to-third hour drop was 21.6 percent, the largest in recent memory and among the biggest in the history of the show. The key was that the first hour topped two million viewers and WWE held Ronda Rousey for last to keep the viewers, but hour three reverted to usual numbers. Essentially the Rumble bump was significant, but those viewers didn’t last throughout the show.
Raw was up six percent in viewers from last week, up three percent in 18-49, and up nine percent in 18-34.
As compared to the show after the 2021 Royal Rumble which was held at the ThunderDome, Raw was down one percent in viewers, down 17 percent in 18-49, and down six percent in 18-34. For total viewers, since cable has dropped, staying that close should be considered good, but almost all major sports have actually increased from last year.
As far as the drops from hour one to hour three, for women 18-49, the show dropped 13 percent (not unusual), men 18-49 dropped 17 percent (higher than usual), girls 12-17 dropped 29 percent (which isn’t good), boys 12-17 dropped 33 percent (which is far worse than usual), and people over 50 dropped 22 percent (the largest in recent memory). The 18-49 drop isn’t as good. The 1,000 Pound Sisters show against hour three drew a huge women’s audience and a big over 50 audience, two categories WWE dropped well above usual levels in.
Raw was third in women 18-49, first in men 18-49 by a wide margin, first in 18-34, tied for first in women 12-34 (but losing head-to-head with 1,000 Pound Sisters), and first in men 12-34.
In total viewers, Raw was 10th, behind mostly news shows but also fell behind 1,000 Pound Sisters, the first time in a long time that an entertainment program had more viewers than Raw on Monday night.
Raw will likely drop significantly next week on Syfy and with competition from the Olympics.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 2.08 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 1.88 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.63 million viewers