Raw ratings are in, a week after surprising season high, details including hourly breakdown (w/Keller’s Analysis)

Last night’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw drew a 2.08 rating, a drop back from the surprising 2.21 rating last week and down from the 2.14 rating the week before. The 2.08 is still above the 10 week rolling average, which was 1.99 headed into this week’s show. It’s also ahead of the fall season average of 1.99.

The third hour returned to larger drop-off more typical of Raw, compared to the strong third hour last week. Hourlies: 3.153 million first hour, 2.981 second hour, 2.796 third hour. Last week’s show began at 3.163 million in the first hour, only 10 more viewers than this week, but ended with 243,000 more viewers than this week’s third hour average.

Keller’s Analysis: I wonder if WWE would have benefited from hyping the Charlotte-Ric Flair segment better. They didn’t mention it until over 20 minutes into the second hour, and by then they had already lost around 172,000 viewers compared to the first hour average. If that is what held the audience last week, it made sense to push it more. Perhaps the absence of advertising Sasha Banks overtly for the final segment hurt, also. But it’s more a case of things returning to normal than anything to be alarmed about. This is the third week in a row the live viewership rating was above 2.0, the first time that’s happened this season. Each of the hourly viewership numbers were very close to the previous four week average.