WWE Raw viewership up slightly, demo rating down from last week
Raw last night averaged 1.78 million viewers overall and drew a 0.45 rating in the 18-49 demo.
The show started strong in the first two hours but had a very large third-hour drop, not near record levels, but still very large.
Raw was first on cable in 18-49 and 17th in total viewers. It was third in women 18-49, first in men 18-49, first in 18-34, first in women 12-34, and first in men 12-34.
News dominated the night but — for a comparison — was down from last week. So Raw should have been the same or up, but the difference was Raw’s third hour held up last week, so what they pushed in the first two hours for hour three wasn’t strong enough to keep the audience.
The third-hour drop is because even though it paid off with the Steve Austin announcement, as far as keeping viewers, the idea that Kevin Owens had a plan to find a way to WrestleMania was not compelling enough to keep the audience, nor was Finn Balor vs. Austin Theory.
As compared to last week, Raw was up one percent in viewers, down four percent in 18-49, and down 16 percent in 18-34.
As compared to last year, the show was down six percent in viewers, down 18 percent in 18-49, and down 14 percent in 18-34.
The only sports competition was college basketball on ESPN that did 810,000 viewers and a 0.23 rating in 18-49.
The first-to-third hour drop was 17 percent, which came from a 22 percent drop in women 18-49, 10 percent drop in men 18-49, 34 percent drop in teenage girls, four percent drop in teenage boys, and a 17 percent drop in people over 50.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 1.91 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 1.84 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.58 million viewers