By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

The following is an excerpt from last week's 8-page, 10,000-word PWTorch Newsletter Cover Story looking inside WWE Corporate & Creative to see where the company stands. In this excerpt, we look at the diminished value of the Raw TV brand following a very key decision made three years ago...

Not a VIP member? Find out how to get access to last week's buzz-worthy cover story inside WWE, plus over 1,000 PWTorch Newsletter back-issues by going VIP HERE.

One of the biggest decisions in the past five years was deciding how to use the third hour of Raw.

When USA Network agreed to back up the truck to pay for an extra hour of Raw, WWE was faced with a key decision: stretch two hours to three, or use the extra hour for a pre-show, non-arena show, or some other outside-the-box hour of television to highlight stars and keep the main “Raw” show fresh.

McMahon’s answer was: “I want three hours of Raw.” The result three years later is a program that features wrestlers who do not seem special to viewers and an overall diminished value to the WWE product. There’s also the trickle-down effect to Smackdown, which now gets even more left-overs and is written with a “Lightning Round” mentality, as described by former Smackdown lead writer Michael Hayes on the Dusty Rhodes Network special on July 6. ....

One of the chief frustrations for new writers coming into the machine-like, week-to-week creative process is WWE’s desire to rush through certain storylines without allowing things to build and play out. Also frustrating is a lack of interest in outside perspectives to add depth to stories.

And if “story” builds the characters, then incomplete stories lead to incomplete characters, fractured individuals who do not connect with the audience. Put these stunted characters in the three-hour Raw environment and it’s no wonder wrestlers do not feel special. It’s perhaps the primary reason Raw has drawn historically-low TV ratings in 2015. It’s a culmination of a roster of wrestlers lacking depth, an audience that cares about stunts rather than long-term stories, and a show that can’t hold an audience’s attention start to finish nor feels like must-see viewing every week. Instead of “Game of Thrones,” it’s become “Family Feud.” Watch now and then, get your fix, move on.

Through the first-half of 2015, Raw’s live + same day average TV rating was a 2.83 rating with average viewership of 3.944 million viewers. This was down 8.4 and 9.1 percent, respectively, from the first-half of 2014. The percentage drop-off is even steeper compared to 2012 and 2013.

Three full years into the three-hour Raw experiment, more and more fans are apathetic about watching start to finish, live, and every week. That audience, which WWE touted in last year’s TV negotiations, is eroding. NBC Universal is getting less and less of what it paid for. More and more fans are watching later and later in the week on DVR, or not at all. Advertisers like live and same day viewership most.

- VIP Members can read the entire article to see where Raw fits into a broader context of WWE business practices and decision-making. Not a VIP member? Find out how to get access by going VIP HERE.

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