WWE Raw felt the effect of airing against two NFL games on Monday night as the show was the least-watched episode since the 4th of July.
The September 19th edition of Raw from San Jose averaged 1,593,000 viewers and approximately 583,000 (0.45) in the 18-49 demographic, according to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
Raw dropped by 7% in overall viewership and it was the least-watched episode since July 4th. In the 18-49 demo, the show was up by a small margin from last week from 575,000 to 583,000.
Raw sustained a significant drop of 15% among Adults 18-34, which was its lowest amount in that demo since July 4th and second-lowest since May 1st. Raw gained 12% among Adults 35-49 but Adults 50+ declined by 11% to 0.79 and thus, hurt the overall viewership figure.
The show ranked fifth among cable originals due to ESPN’s Monday Night Football coverage of the Buffalo Bills vs. Tennessee Titans that aired on ESPN and ESPN 2. The game averaged 6.57 million viewers and 2.14 in 18-49 on ESPN with the simulcast on ESPN 2 averaging 1.35 million and 0.47 respectively.
Monday was a unique week as there were two NFL games airing as ABC carried the Philadelphia Eagles vs. Minnesota Vikings. This meant that Raw aired against two NFL games from 8:30 p.m. ET until 10:34 p.m. when the Bills vs. Titans game ended. The game averaged 12.9 million viewers and 3.81 in 18-49 to dominate all of television on Monday night.
Raw opened with 1,709,000 viewers and 0.46 in the 18-49 demographic with the show starting with the United States title match between Bobby Lashley and Seth Rollins that aired prior to the start of the NFL game on ABC.
The second hour fell in viewership to 1,623,000 but the demo was flat at 0.46 and the third hour fell to 1,449,000 viewers and 0.42 in the demo and featured the main event between Bayley and Alexa Bliss.
In Canada, the show averaged 182,000 viewers and 72,000 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 306 and ranked third for the night among sports programs behind both NFL games, which is a very good showing despite Raw dropping 16% in viewership and 40% in the demo from last week.
