Raw ratings up for third straight week, third hour powered by two title matches has much smaller dropoff (w/Keller’s Analysis)

This week’s episode of Raw (Nov. 28) on USA Network drew a 2.21 rating, the highest rating of the fall season. There was a smaller dropoff in the third hour than usual, perhaps pointing to the Women’s Title match between Charlotte and Sasha Banks holding the audience more than usual. Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens opened up the third hour, followed by WWE Tag Team Title match and Women’s Title match, with the emotional Paul Heyman promo regarding Brock Lesnar losing to Goldberg also in the mix. Both title matches were hyped all week headed into the show.

The first hour drew 3.16 million viewers, the secon dhour drew 3.130 million, and the third hour drew 3.039 million. The dropoff of 90,000 viewers is well below last week’s dropoff of 325,000 viewers or the 187,000 the prior week.

The average for November comes in at a solid 2.07. The ten week rolling average for Raw is now 1.99. And seasonal average since the start of September nudges up to 1.99 also.

Keller’s Analysis: Hmmm. Interesting and encouraging for WWE. Yes, the viewership still went down in the stacked third hour, but this seemed to be a concerted effort by WWE to give a boost to the third hour with two title matches, the end of a Reigns-Owens match, and the Heyman sitdown promo. It may have worked. The viewership for the first two hours was similar to last week, but the lack of a dropoff in the third hour is what drove the average rating for the show from the 2.14 last week to a 2.21 this week. The minute-by-minutes might tell a story here in terms of which segment powered the third hour above usual trends. We hope to have those later this week.