Raw last night set a couple of new lows, but also had one of the best ratings patterns in a long time.
The basic gist is that the audience was at a low point averaging 2.16 million viewers over the three hours, the lowest for a non-holiday show in modern history that didn’t have a major competing sports event. The prior low in that category was 2.17 million viewers on February 3.
The first hour audience of 2.16 million was also a new low for a non-holiday modern show without major sports competition, substantially lower than the previous low mark of 2.25 million on February 24. What makes it worse is that the show came the day after a pay-per-view.
But the audience held up better than usual, growing in hour two and not falling that much in hour three. Essentially it appears less casual fans watched, but those that did stuck with the show at a greater rate than usual.
Raw still took the top three spots in the 18-49 rankings. Overall it was tenth for the day, trailing only news programming.
The overall number was down four percent from last week.
The low first hour is a bad sign because usually after a PPV, the first hour shows a good increase and the overall episode is higher. This indicates there wasn’t much interest in the Elimination Chamber follow-up.
The second hour being higher than the first hour happens more frequently during Daylight Savings Time and the low first hour is because people for the next few months are more likely to start the show later.
The show was down 23 percent from the same week last year.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 2.16 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.22 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.11 million viewers