Week of 11/2 Live TV & DVR Viewers – interesting Raw Trend

For the Week of November 2, WWE TV shows made up 92 percent of the TV wrestling audience, up from 90 percent last week. This was mainly due to audiences for ROH TV and TNA Impact declining from the previous week.

There is also an interesting Raw viewership trend. During the fall season, the third hour has performed poorly live+same day. When looking at live + DVR, the second hour is the weakest link.

On the DVR, viewers seem to be fast-forwarding through the middle of the show to get to the end, boosting third-hour viewership. Or, people are turning off Raw early live on Monday night, then finishing the third hour on the DVR. Either way, there is a shift in how viewers are consuming three-hour Raws.

Overall Viewership – WWE Raw, WWE Smackdown, TNA Impact, ROH TV (Week of Nov. 2)

– Live Viewership Pie: 5.885 million viewers, down from 6.116 million live viewers last week. The pie shrank mainly due to a downturn in Raw viewership combined with small-scale declines in ROH and Impact.

– Live & DVR Pie: 6.519 million viewers, down from 6.725 million total viewers last week.

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– WWE Raw (Monday, November 2): Raw averaged 3.248 million live viewers, down from 3.354 million viewers for the post-HIAC episode.

Live+DVR viewership was 3.628 million, down from 3.725 million viewers last week. This week’s Raw averaged a few more DVR viewers (380,000 vs. 360,000) to close the margin.

This week’s show also captured the DVR viewing habit of viewers either shutting off Raw early and finishing the third hour later or fast-forwarding through Raw to the end of the show…

• First Hour: 3.375 million live viewers +329,000 to 3.704 million live+DVR viewers.
• Second Hour: 3.180 million live viewers +329,000 to 3.509 million live+DVR viewers.
• Third Hour: 3.189 million live viewers +482,000 to 3.671 million live+DVR viewers.

Overall, Raw made up 56 percent of the total TV wrestling viewership pie for the week.

– TNA Impact (Wednesday, Nov. 4): Impact drew 262,000 first-run viewers, down slightly from 266,000 first-run viewers last week.

Impact then drew 25,000 DVR viewers and 81,000 West Coast/replay viewers after ROH TV.

Impact’s total audience was 368,000 viewers, down from 391,000 combined total viewers last week.

– ROH TV (Wednesday, Nov. 4): ROH came back to earth with 141,000 viewers in the 11:00 p.m. EST timeslot one week after drawing an historical audience of 227,000 viewers.

– WWE Smackdown (Thursday, Nov. 5): Smackdown drew 2.123 million live viewers, down from 2.171 million live viewers last week.

DVR viewership was 259,000 viewers, up from 223k and 211k the previous two weeks. It was nearly enough to make up the difference…

Smackdown’s total audience was 2.382 million viewers, down slightly from 2.394 million last week.