Raw Rating: Viewership down from last week’s post-Summerslam spike, key metrics including ranking, historical comparisons, hourly trend

Last night’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw drew a 1.35 rating, down from last week’s 1.53 rating and in-line with the August average of 1.33. The ten-week average prior to the debut of Thunderdome was 1.26, so if this week’s rating is any indication, the new set and improved atmosphere is good for about a ten percent increase in viewers once the post-Summerslam factor last week is removed; it’s a small sample size, and we’re now moving into a holiday week and then NFL Monday Night Football season, so comparisons become more noisy and less apple-to-apples.

Hourly viewership showed a relative lack of interest in the triple threat main event with Randy Orton, Seth Rollins, and Keith Lee, although WWE did a poor job letting viewers know that the triple threat match would take place at the end of the show that also contained the qualifying matches, so some viewers might not have known to stick around for that particular match.

The first hour drew 2.104 million viewers, the second hour 1.882 million viewers, and the third hour 1.703 million viewers. That’s a first-to-third hour drop of 401,000, the highest in the pandemic era. March 30 was the last time the dropoff was higher (493,000).

WWE did go against NBA playoffs, which could have factored into the sharper than usual decline over the course of the three hours. Two NBA games on TNT topped cable ratings in the 18-49 demographiic with ratings of 1.76 and 1.39. Raw, by comparison, finished no. 4, 6, and 7 in the rankings with demo ratings of 0.82, 0.76, and 0.70.

One year ago this week, Raw drew a 1.70 rating (down from the prior week’s 1.79 rating. Two years ago, Raw drew a 1.95 rating. Three years ago it drew a 2.09 rating.