Following the Royal Rumble event, WWE scored its highest Raw numbers of the year, although it experienced a large drop in the final hour.
The January 31st episode from Cincinnati was promoted around Ronda Rousey’s first appearance on television since 2019 and averaged 1,865,000 viewers and approximately 619,000 viewers (0.47) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
Both figures were Raw’s best of 2022. It was Raw’s highest overall viewership since August 30th and its largest 18-49 audience since November 22nd, which was the day after the Survivor Series.
The show finished #1 on cable for the second week in a row coinciding with the end of football on Monday nights.
Raw started off very strong with 2,083,000 viewers and 0.52 in the 18-49 demographic with Brock Lesnar making his WrestleMania decision at the beginning of the program. It was the most-watched hour of Raw since the day after SummerSlam last August. Viewers over the age of 50 were huge in this hour with a 1.09 rating in that demo.
In hour two, the show fell to 1,879,000 viewers and 0.47 in the 18-49 demo.
There was another drop in the third hour that averaged 1,633,000 viewers and 0.43 in 18-49 with the show ending with Ronda Rousey’s appearance and interaction with Becky Lynch.
The drop in viewership from the first to the third hour was 22 percent, which was their largest decline throughout the show in nearly two years. The 18-49 audience fell 17 percent throughout the show. To compare, last week’s viewership fell 12.5 percent throughout the show while the 18-49 demo actually increased by 4 percent. Two weeks ago, Raw dropped 16 percent in viewers and 15 percent in the demo against the NFL playoff game. It was their largest 18-49 decline throughout the show since November 8th.
Hour 1 had 2.083 million viewers, the first hour to reach 2 million viewers since Aug 23.
Hour 3, though, had 1,633,000 viewers, down 22% from Hour 1, the biggest 8 to 10pm decrease in total viewership since March 2020. pic.twitter.com/j027BfSl3I
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) February 1, 2022
Monday’s episode also saw first to third-hour declines of 22 percent in adults 50+, a 26 percent drop with males 12-34, and a 20 percent drop in adults 18-34 throughout the show.
Week over week, males 18-49 grew by 7.5 percent, and adults 18-34 increased 9.5 percent. Adults 35-49 were flat week over week and the 50+ demo rating increased from 0.92 to 0.97.
In Canada, Raw increased with an average of 218,700 viewers and 115,200 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. It was their highest overall viewership in Canada since January 3rd and up from last week’s figures of 198,900 and 102,500 respectively.
