Going against the College Football Championship game, WWE Raw fell 14% although still maintained an average over the two million viewer mark.
The three-hour edition of Raw from Lexington, Kentucky averaged 2,030,000 viewers putting it among the least-watched episodes in the history of the program. It was lower than all but one episode of Raw in 2019 with the December 16th edition trailing this week’s number, which was a show that was taped a week in advance.
The major factor was the College Football Playoff National Championship game between Clemson and LSU that did 25,004,000 viewers on ESPN and 381,000 on ESPN2. To compare with 2018, the Alabama vs. Clemson final did 24,322,000 and 666,000 on ESPN2 while Raw that week did 2,324,000 viewers. So, the football game was up 1.5% while Raw was down 13% from 2019.
The first hour averaged 2,218,000 viewers, fell 7% in the second hour to 2,059,000 viewers and dropped another 12% with the third hour averaging 1,814,000. The latter figure would make this week’s third hour the third-lowest final hour since the show expanded to its current length in July 2012.
Raw did a 0.61 in the 18-49 demographic, which was down 17.5% from last week’s strong performance. They were hit hardest among females 12-34, which fell 28.5% from last week, followed by females 18-49 down 23%, and 16.5% with males 18-49. The demos that held up from last week were males 12-34 that only fell 4% and adults over fifty were down 11%.
Comparing the first hour to the third, females 12-34 dropped 27%, adults 25-54 dropped 18%, and females 18-49 declined 15.5%. Males 12-34 only dropped 6% from the first to the third hour with the other key demos showcasing double-digit declines from the first to the third hour.
Raw is free of football competition and has a reprieve from major sports competition until the NBA playoffs begin in the spring. Next week, we will see what kind of bounce back effect is seen as the show has performed well over the past two weeks.
Below is a breakdown of the key demos with comparisons to last week’s figures and how the show did among the groups from the first hour to the third:
Adults 18-49
This week: 0.61
Last week: 0.74 (-17.5%)
Hour 1-3: -15%
Females 18-49
This week: 0.40
Last week: 0.52 (-23%)
Hour 1-3: -15.5%
Males 18-49
This week: 0.81
Last week: 0.97 (-16.5%)
Hour 1-3: -15%
Adults 18-34
This week: 0.43
Last week: 0.51 (-16%)
Hour 1-3: -11%
Females 12-34
This week: 0.25
Last week: 0.35 (-28.5%)
Hour 1-3: -27%
Males 12-34
This week: 0.53
Last week: 0.55 (-4%)
Hour 1-3: -6%
Adults 25-54
This week: 0.72
Last week: 0.86 (-16%)
Hour 1-3: -18%
Adults 50+
This week: 0.97
Last week: 1.09 (-11%)
Hour 1-3: -14%
