SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Monday’s episode of WWE Raw on USA Network drew a 1.97 rating among live and same-night-DVR viewers. This was above last week’s 1.93 and back in line with the 1.97 two weeks ago. September ended up averaging a 1.99 rating, which was below the 2017 average of 2.11 and the ten-week rolling averaged headed into this week of 2.13.
The hourly numbers included a similar staggering dropoff from the first hour to the third hour. Last week the dropoff was 591,000, nearly triple the 2017 average of 222,000. This week it dropped by 553,000, not quite as bad as last week.
Last year, the rating collapsed to a 1.75 i what turned out to be an anomaly as the ratings went back above 1.90 all but one week the rest of the year.
Keller’s Analysis: Coming the day after a WrestleMania-level double-main event, this could be seen as a disappointing number. Given that Brock Lesnar and John Cena were not on the show, though, could mitigate some of that disappointment. This will be the Raw forever remembered as the episode that closed with Enzo Amore in the final segment, for better or for worse.
It’s interesting, because live people were saying “really, they’re closing with Enzo?” and after Raw the Enzo-Neville segment had serious buzz and I bet the YouTube figures show it. It’s the kind of thing people will say later they watched live even though they didn’t. So it might encourage people to stick around for the 3rd hour next week even though they didn’t stay this time.
Yet another example of WWE getting all the main event stuff done in the first 2 hours and leaving the midcard angles for the “main event” hour 3 spot, though.