SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Last night’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw (2/25) on USA Network drew a 2.05 rating, the highest rating since Aug. 20. The episode was built around Roman Reigns updating his health and Ric Flair’s 70th birthday celebration which ended with the unadvertised appearance by Batista.
The first hour drew 3.167 million viewers, the first time an hour of Raw drew more than three million viewers since Aug. 27 last year.
The viewership dropped in the second hour to 2.952 million, and then in the third hour sharply dropped off to 2.648 million. The first-to-third hour drop of 519,000 is slightly above the 444,000 average this year. The third hour, though, did draw the most viewers for a third hour since Sept. 3 last year.
Last night’s Raw finished in the top three spots in Monday cable ratings, according to a TV By The Numbers chart, in the 18-49 key demographic, with 1.1, 1.0, and 0.9 ratings for each of the hours, with the next best rated show being VH1’s “Love and Hip Hip” with a 0.6 rating. Raw’s first hour was also the most viewed show of the entire night among total viewers. The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC came in no. 2, ahead of Raw’s other two hours, with 2.959 million viewers, followed closely by “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News with 2.964 million viewers. Raw’s second hour came in close behind with 2.952 million in the no. 4 overall spot.
The average rating so far this year is 1.84. With the potential return of Reigns – it’s not clear yet how often he’ll appear or when he will next appear – and a Batista-Triple H feud, plus some new wrestlers in the mix from NXT as WrestleMania season hits its peak, ratings should remain at some of the highest levels of the last year.
February closed with a 1.88 average rating, above the 1.80 average in January, but below the February 2018 average of 2.18.
Yeah well, wrestlers returning after beating cancer & Ric Flair’s 70th birthday don’t happen every week. it’ll be back down soon enough.