WWE Raw dips to second-lowest rating ever, big dropoff up against NFL compared to last year, key demo comparisons to AEW

RATINGS

This week’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw (10/3) drew a 1.07 rating, down from last week’s 1.11. It’s the lowest rating since July 4. The only lower ratings this year were the 1.04 rating on Feb. 14 and the 0.94 rating on Feb. 7. It’s the third-lowest rating in Raw history.

The ten-week average is 1.32, including the 1.56 rating on Aug. 1 after the news broke of Vince McMahon retiring which brought the average up a bit. The last nine weeks, excluding that outlier, drew an average of 1.29. The same ten week period last year averaged a 1.23 rating.

The last ten weeks of Vince McMahon in charge of creative drew an average rating of 1.25. So the ten weeks since Paul Levesque took over creative have averaged 0.12 better than the prior ten weeks even with the Monday Night Football competition on four of those weeks.

On the down side when evaluating the Levesque era so far, Raw has taken a bigger hit this year up against the start of Monday Night Football on ESPN than it did last year.

This year, during the four weeks up against the NFL on ESPN, it has averaged a 1.12 rating, down from the prior four week average of 1.45. That’s a drop of 23 percent.

Last year, during the first four weeks up against the NFL on ESPN, it averaged 1.26, down from the prior four week average of 1.36. That’s a drop of just 7 percent.

That’s a pretty jarring dropoff this year up against the NFL on Monday nights and certainly a trend Levesque and his team will be trying to reverse with the season premiere episode next Monday.

HOURLY VIEWERSHIP

Average viewership this week was 1.599 million. Hourly viewrship was 1.701 million for the first hour, 1.683 million in the second hour, and 1.413 million in the third hour.

The third hour viewership is among the lowest rated hours of Raw in history. Raw’s third hour has dipped under 1.4 million multiple times this year, though.

The average viewership for Raw the last ten weeks is 1.891 million. The ten-week average during the same period last year was 1.832 million.

KEY DEMOS

In the key 18-49 demo, Raw drew a 0.40 this week, down from 0.45 last week. It has averaged 0.43 the last four weeks up against the NFL. It averaged 0.56 the prior four weeks.

AEW Dynamite the last four weeks, by comparison, has averaged 0.35.

In the male 18-49 demo, WWE Raw has averaged 0.55 the last four weeks. AEW has averaged 0.48 in the same demo.

In the younger male 18-34 demo, WWE has averaged 0.32 the last four weeks. AEW also averaged 0.32.