WWE Raw Rating Drops Again – Third Hour Takes Big Hit

Most wrestling fans in the know understand that this time of year is hard on WWE Raw ratings. With the NFL season back and Monday Night Football in full swing, Vince McMahon and company know that things will be hard until the beginning of next year at least. But surely no-one at Titan Towers saw this coming.

For the second week in a row, yesterday’s (9/28) Raw posted its lowest ever non holiday episode since it was stretched out to three hours. According PWInsider, 3.3 million people tuned in, down from the 3.348 million the week before (9/21). Just like last week, the audience dwindled throughout the show.

With John Cena opening the show (a ploy to keep fans with the show before Monday Night Football perhaps?), 3.46 million watched the first hour. That dropped to 3.326 million in the second hour and then fell off to the lowest 10-11PM hour of Raw since it was lengthened to three hours, a disturbing 3.188 million.

The rating was a 2.33, which is down from the 2.47 rating from last week.

This week’s episode of Raw drew the lowest viewership number (aside from a Christmas episode) since it expanded to a three hour version in July 2012.

For what it’s worth, the September 29, 2014 edition of Raw delivered a 2.83 rating with 4.03 million viewers.

Analysts are saying that the heavily pushed Roman Reigns vs Bray Wyatt main event just didn’t do enough to keep fans watching. Maybe the fans were watching the Monday Night Football game between the Kansas City Chiefs vs Green Bay Packers as the viewing numbers for that was 13.4 million, which is up from 12.5 million viewers last week.

Ski’s Take – I can see Vince walking up and down the corridors of Titan Towers just randomly firing anyone he sees with this news. He must be fuming! Is he going to blame Wyatt and Reigns for the dramatic decline as they were the main event? All night they were heavily pushed and promoted yet viewers left in droves in that last hour.

As entertaining as the brawl between both combatants was, there were a lot of segments that were very short (even one sided) matches, a lot of repetitiveness on the show, and constant showing of performers that are stale, not repackaged and pushed as main event tier talent (Kane I’m looking at you).

Putting his go to guy Cena on first didn’t help as the fans tuned in to see him in the first hour and lost interest. Is this a wake up call for Vince? Is he going to put a rocket up his writers? Try to promote his mid card talent in a meaningful angle? Finally push the button on the yawn-fest that has become the Divas Revolution? He has to do something and soon, as the network and sponsors in particular won’t be happy to see the dramatic slide that Raw is taking. Dwindling viewership could spell dwindling sponsors which equals less revenue for the company.

I really hope that the WWE halt this alarming decline. If they don’t and they do indeed begin to lose revenue, then we can expect a roster cull.

What do you think needs to happen? Something drastic or just stay the course?