The test of building the entire episode of RAW around a WWE Championship match led to the program’s best third-hour performance in three months.
Monday’s episode averaged 1,778,000 viewers and a 0.51 rating in the 18-49 demographic placing it fifth among all cable programming for the evening.
The story of the show was the main event where Drew McIntyre defeated Randy Orton to win the WWE Championship. It was advertised all week and built throughout the evening as “a main event worthy of WrestleMania”.
The show began with 1,868,000 viewers in the first hour, which wasn’t significantly higher than in recent weeks but was the best opening hour since October 12th. In hour two, the show dropped 7 percent in viewers and 3.5 percent in the demo. The big third hour featuring the WWE title match averaged 1,728,000 viewers and a 0.50 in the demo, which was a drop of 0.6 percent viewership but an increase by 4.2 percent in the demo.
It was their most-watched third hour since August 24th, which was the night after SummerSlam and the first episode of RAW inside the WWE ThunderDome.
The key demos told an interesting story as the female viewership dropped sizably in the third hour. Females 18-49 were down 25 percent in hour three from the opening hour and women 12-34 fell by 23 percent in the last hour.
The male audience saw growth in hour three as men 18-49 rose by 1.5 percent and men 12-34 increased by 7 percent. The adult 18-34 demo also improved in hour three with a jump of 4 percent.
In the week-to-week figures, adults 18-34 were down 22.5 percent compared with last week, and women 12-34 were down 24 percent this week.
RAW was also against a bigger Monday Night Football game this week as the Minnesota Vikings vs. Chicago Bears averaged 11,450,000 viewers on ESPN, which was up by 16.5 percent from last week’s game.
In Canada, RAW was the second most-watched sports program on Monday averaging 216,500 viewers and 113,200 in the 25-54 demo on Sportsnet 360 trailing the Monday Night Football game. While they were down 17.2 percent in viewership, they were up slightly in the demo by 1.5 percent.
Here is a breakdown of the key demos with comparisons between the first and third hours:
ADULTS 18-49
This week: 0.51 (-4 percent)
Hour 1-3: -9 percent
FEMALES 18-49
This week: 0.37 (-10 percent)
Hour 1-3: -25 percent
MALES 18-49
This week: 0.66 (+1.5 percent)
Hour 1-3: +1.5 percent
ADULTS 18-34
This week: 0.24 (-22.4 percent)
Hour 1-3: +4 percent
FEMALES 12-34
This week: 0.19 (-24 percent)
Hour 1-3: -23 percent
MALES 12-34
This week: 0.30 (-6.25 percent)
Hour 1-3: +7 percent
ADULTS 25-54
This week: 0.65 (+5 percent)
Hour 1-3: -8.5 percent
ADULTS 50+
This week: 0.85 (+9 percent)
Hour 1-3: -2 percent
