The season premiere of RAW saw a drop from last week’s WWE Draft while still finishing fourth among all cable programming.
The three-hour go-home episode for Hell in a Cell averaged 1,777,000 viewers, a drop of 4 percent in viewership but also fell 9 percent in the 18-49 demographic with a 0.52 rating. Of the past six episodes of RAW, this week’s show topped four of them in total viewership.
What affected this week’s average was the first hour that did 1,806,000 viewers compared with last week’s draft topping two million viewers for the opening hour. The difference was a small gain of viewers in the second hour rising to 1,835,000 before a decline of 8 percent in the final hour to 1,689,000 viewers.
Because of the lower first hour, the first-to-third hour throughout the show was only 6.5 percent (last week the show dropped 16.5 percent throughout the episode) and only fell by 2 percent in the key demographic. The larger declines were felt between hours two and three this week where the demo decreased by 12.5 percent.
In looking at the key demographics, males 12-34 saw an 11 percent uptick from last week while adults 50+ and women 12-34 stayed even. The notable declines were among the 18-49 demo, which was all down by 9 percent.
In analyzing the first to third-hour comparisons, due to the lower first hour, the declines were not large with the biggest being women 12-34 dropping by 9 percent. In a rare occurrence, men 12-34 increased by 14 percent, and adults 18-34 jumped by 7 percent in the third hour compared to hour one.
Without Major League Baseball or the NBA playoffs to contend with, the lone sports competition was Monday Night Football. The game between the Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys did 11,317,000 viewers on ESPN and topped the cable charts with a 3.57 demo rating.
After six weeks of Monday Night Football, RAW is averaging 1,750,000 viewers and a 0.53 rating in the 18-49 demo.
In Canada, RAW was the fourth most-watched sports broadcast averaging 220,400 on Sportsnet 360 behind the Cardinals vs. Cowboys game, NFL Monday Countdown, and the earlier game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills, which all aired on TSN. In the 25-54 demographic, WWE Raw averaged 112,500 on Monday night.
RAW has the advantage of not facing any World Series games throughout this period while AEW & NXT go against Game 2 on Wednesday, and Friday Night SmackDown goes against Game 3 while being moved to FS1 to accommodate Fox’s airing of the game.
Here is a comparison to last week and the first-to-third hour comparisons:
Source: Showbuzz Daily
ADULTS 18-49
This week: 0.52 (-9 percent)
Hour 1-3: -2 percent
FEMALES 18-49
This week: 0.42 (-9 percent)
Hour 1-3: -7 percent
MALES 18-49
This week: 0.62 (-9 percent)
Hour 1-3: +2 percent
ADULTS 18-34
This week: 0.30 (+3 percent)
Hour 1-3: +7 percent
FEMALES 12-34
This week: 0.22 (Even)
Hour 1-3: -9 percent
MALES 12-34
This week: 0.39 (+11 percent)
Hour 1-3: +14 percent
ADULTS 25-54
This week: 0.65 (-3 percent)
Hour 1-3: -5 percent
ADULTS 50+
This week: 0.86 (+1 percent)
Hour 1-3: -7 percent
