Image: WWE
Raw last night, going against the Alabama vs. Ohio State college football championship game, averaged 1.82 million viewers and drew a 0.55 rating in 18-49.
Overall the number has to be considered a success as final numbers given the competition. But a 19.4 percent first-to-third hour drop ranks among the highest in history. What happened is the combination of curiosity over Drew McIntyre’s comments and the return of Triple H got people into the first hour at a very high level. However, the show-long build for a Triple H vs. Randy Orton fight, copying a scenario that worked great a few months back for Orton vs. Christian, didn’t hold the audience, likely due to the competition of the game.
The Triple H vs. Orton fight did work strongly for teenage boys to keep tuned in but not with the rest of the audience.
Most likely a normal Raw against the game would have done near record lows, since the football audience was the largest of the season for Mondays.
It was down 15 percent from last week, but last week was Legends Night and had no football competition, and down 19 percent in 18-49 and 15 percent in 18-34.
The football game did 18.22 million viewers, a huge drop from the championship game last year that did 25.38 million viewers.
As compared to last year against a much higher-rated game, Raw was down 10 percent in viewers, 10 percent in 18-49, and 19 percent in 18-34, lower declines than is usual, likely because of the Monday afternoon news sparking hour one.
As far as where the audience was lost, women 18-49 dropped 28 percent from the first hour to the third, men 18-49 dropped 14 percent, teenage girls dropped 50 percent, teenage boys actually gained 14 percent, and over 50 dropped 16 percent.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 2.02 million viewers
9 p.m. 1.80 million viewers
10 p.m. 1.63 million viewers