WWE Raw experiences another drop, lowest third hour ever

News
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Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/04/28/wwe-raw-experiences-another-drop-lowest-third-hour-ever/

Monday’s episode of Raw continued the downward trend and hit another low figure including its lowest third hour in history.

Monday’s episode averaged 1,817,000 viewers, a drop of 1.4% from last week and second-lowest in modern history. The only show below this week’s figure was the taped episode of Raw from Christmas Eve 2018 that averaged 1,775,000 viewers.

The show began with 1,945,000 viewers, which was slightly higher than last week’s opening hour. The show fell 3% in the second hour to 1,888,000 and down 14% in the third hour to 1,619,000. The first-to-third hour fall was 16.7%. The third hour also had a one minute overrun.

This would mark the least-watched third hour since Raw expanded to three hours in July 2012. It would also be the lowest-watched hour of Raw in modern history.

The show was promoted around a contract signing between Drew McIntyre and Seth Rollins. Earlier in the day, they began advertising the Nia Jax vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Asuka match that never started.

Raw did a 0.51 in the 18-49 demographic, which was down 9% but still placed Raw in 2nd, 3rd, and 7th among cable programming on Monday night behind Love & Hip Hop Atlanta on VH1.

Females 12-34 did increase 10.5% this week with 0.21, although has not recovered to its usual levels as this demo did a 0.31 the night after WrestleMania. Adults over 50 were also up 3.5%.

The biggest loss was among men 12-34 which declined 15% followed by males 18-49 falling 10%.

The losses from the first to the third hour were huge highlighted by a drop of 33% among women 12-34 and females 18-49 declining 29.5% throughout the show. Adults over 50 held up best with the decline mitigated to 11% from the first to the third hour.

Here is the breakdown of the demos, comparisons to last week and hour one to hour three:

ADULTS 18-49
This week: 0.51 (-9%)
Hour 1-3: -23%

FEMALES 18-49
This week: 0.39 (-9%)
Hour 1-3: -29.5%

MALES 18-49
This week: 0.62 (-10%)
Hour 1-3: -21%

ADULTS 18-34
This week: 0.25 (-7%)
Hour 1-3: -25%

FEMALES 12-34
This week: 0.21 (+10.5%)
Hour 1-3: -33%

MALES 12-34
This week: 0.29 (-15%)
Hour 1-3: -13%

ADULTS 25-54
This week: 0.63 (-4.5%)
Hour 1-3: -22%

ADULTS 50+
This week: 0.89 (+3.5%)
Hour 1-3: -11%

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It’s going to reach that lowest figure ever isn’t it?

Even though USA Network are apparently happy, behind the scenes, surely they can’t be happy with how much they are paying.

I do wonder if they’ll do something with that 3rd hour as in a 2 hour standard Raw then maybe a best off show for the 3rd?

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To be honest, I’m surprised the rating is as high as it is still. They did 1,817,000 this past Monday and the last Monday before they were in the performance center they did 2,163,000.

Considering how brutal these shows are to watch across the board (WWE, NXT, AEW etc.) I would have expected the ratings to be lower by now.

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That would be a good idea. I was actually wondering what type of number they would pull if they went off the air for a few months and began airing Attitude Era Raws. Or even do 1 hour of current content, then air a 2 hour attitude era Raw. I could see it doing well for the short term. I would watch if they aired the summer of 1997, that stuff was gold.