WWE News: Monday Night Raw viewership drops significantly

What’s the Story?

Monday Night Raw was down last week following the Royal Rumble and Raw 25, but this week resulted in an even further decline.

This week’s episode of Raw averaged 3.05 million and was down 344,000 from last week’s average of 3.394 million.

In Case You Didn’t Know

Raw kicked off with short promos from Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt which lead into their Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match. The biggest matches on the show were Reigns vs. Wyatt, Bayley vs. Asuka, and John Cena vs. Braun Strowman vs. Elias Samson in the main event to determine who enters the Elimination Chamber match last.

The Heart of the Matter

The following is the hourly breakdown for the Feb. 6 edition of Raw per ShowBuzzDaily:

Hour one: 3.212 million

Hour two: 3.161 million

Hour three: 2.793 million

The drop in viewership from hour one to hour two of the program resulted in 51,000 fans tuning out, but the biggest drop occurred in the third hour when 368,000 viewers stopped watching the program.

Raw’s ratings dominated the cable once again, but the show suffered an even bigger decline than last week. This show, as well as last week show, was heralded by fans as some of the better episodes in recent memory, but that sentiment did not transfer to their viewership.

What’s Next?

Next week’s Raw will finalize the Men’s Elimination Chamber match participants as Bray Wyatt, Finn Bálor and Matt Hardy will compete in a Fatal 4way match.

Author’s Take

The flagship show has delivered two weeks of consistent programming and the fact that it hasn’t translated into better viewership is an interesting sign.

Raw 25 generated significant viewership for the program, so the interest is there in the product, but doesn’t seem to be even remotely close to what their base audience has become.