The go-home edition of WWE Raw heading into SummerSlam saw the show face competition from the DNC convention and the NBA playoffs along with a big loss in the third hour.
Monday’s three-hour episode averaged 1,643,000 viewers and would be Raw’s fourth-lowest viewership in modern history, down 4.5 percent from last week.
The show began with 1,730,000 viewers in the first hour, it fell by 2 percent in the second hour to 1,697,000 and had a larger decline of 11.5 percent in the third hour to 1,502,000 viewers. The third hour was the second-lowest hour in the modern history of Raw behind the third hour of the July 27th episode that averaged 1,493,000 viewers.
In the 18-49 demographic, the show improved by 2 percent with a 0.48 rating, however, the main demo dropped 15 percent in the third hour. This led to Raw finishing 9th, 10th & 13th among Monday’s cable ratings.
They faced competition with two NBA playoff games and coverage of the DNC convention that ran on three of the big four networks. The convention began at 10 pm Eastern while CNN’s coverage started an hour earlier. The convention could explain the poor showing of the third hour of Raw.
The first night of the DNC convention was watched by 18 million people across NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC.
The Dallas Mavericks vs. L.A Clippers game at 9:15 pm on ESPN won the night on cable with a 1.01 rating in the demo with 2,278,000 viewers followed by CNN’s coverage of the convention, and the earlier game between the Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics.
Compared to last week, Raw rebounded with adults 18-34 which were up by 27 percent back to a 0.28 rating, which was its same rating on August 3rd after falling to a 0.22 last week. However, that demo dropped 27 percent in the last hour.
Females 18-49 were up by 10 percent this week, but also experienced a 17 percent decline in the third hour.
Every key demo fell in the third hour by double digits led by females 12-34 (36 percent), adults 18-34 (27 percent), and adults 18-49 (15 percent). Adults over 50 had the smallest drop by 12 percent but it was the continual pattern since Raw Underground began as adults over 50 watched the first two hours and tuned out in the third.
The 12-34 audience losses are notable because that is the audience that Raw Underground did best with during Week 1 on August 3rd. Those audiences grew by 18 percent with men and 12.5 percent with women on August 3rd and fell by 16 percent and 36 percent respectively this week, and that cannot be attributed entirely to the competition.
Next week’s competition will be similar to Raw going against the RNC convention and the NBA playoffs, but it will be following SummerSlam along with the novelty of the WWE ThunderDome concept to partially offset it.
This week, Raw finished ahead of last week’s episode of AEW across all the key demos.
Here is a breakdown of the demos and how the first hour to compared to the third:
ADULTS 18-49
This week: 0.48 (+2 percent)
Hour 1-3: -15 percent
FEMALES 18-49
This week: 0.33 (+10 percent)
Hour 1-3: -17 percent
MALES 18-49
This week: 0.63 (+3 percent)
Hour 1-3: -13 percent
ADULTS 18-34
This week: 0.28 (+27 percent)
Hour 1-3: -27 percent
FEMALES 12-34
This week: 0.19 (Even)
Hour 1-3: -36 percent
MALES 12-34
This week: 0.34 (+6.25 percent)
Hour 1-3: -16 percent
ADULTS 25-54
This week: 0.60 (-1.5 percent)
Hour 1-3: -13 percent
ADULT 50+
This week: 0.80 (-6 percent)
Hour 1-3: -12 percent
