Raw back on top of cable ratings in key demo with football season over, comparisons to prior years after football season, other key metrics

The Jan. 14 episode of WWE Monday Night Raw on USA Network drew a 1.89 rating, the highest rating for Raw since Aug. 27 before football season began. That’s a jump of 0.30 over the prior ten week average.

Last year, Raw drew a 2.21 rating this week, which was a jump of 0.25 over the prior ten week average.

So that’s encouraging for WWE that viewers returned at a higher percentage than last year, but it’s bad news that 1.89 is the highest Raw has been since Aug. 27, whereas the rating for the same show the last two years was 2.21 and 2.16.

The hourly viewership was 2.775 million first hour, 2.781 second hour, and 2.610 third hour. That’s a first-to-third drop-off of 165,000, lower than the ten week rolling average headed into this week of 346,000, although it’s been both much higher (539,000 last week) and much lower (35,000 on Dec. 17).

With football season over, WWE Raw’s three hours finished in the top three spots for Monday night with a 0.9 in the key 18-49 demographic all three hours. In total viewers, the most viewed show was The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC which drew 3.347 million. However, Raw’s three hours were no. 2, 3, and 4 in total viewers for the night, as no other show topped Raw in total viewers.

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