Even with weak TV competition, RAW ratings drop to 3.09 million viewers
After last week’s current day strong RAW number following the surprising Dean Ambrose WWE title win, ratings came down for the Monday, June 27th edition of the show on a night without strong television competition.
Raw did 3.09 million viewers, the lowest number on a night without major team sports competition since 1997 . That’s the second lowest numbers outside of football season or major holidays, beating only the 2.96 million viewers drawn two weeks ago against game five of the NBA playoffs.
The ratings pattern showed that people were at a low level of interest going in with a unusually weak first hour. There was some second hour growth, and a small third hour decline. However, it wasn’t the usual big third hour drop so the fans who were there stuck through the show for the most part.
Raw was third for the night on cable, trailing TNT’s Rizzoli & Isles (4.36 million viewers) and TNT’s Major Crimes (3.99 million viewers), barely beating Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor (3.05 million viewers).
Viewership dropped 11 percent from last week, showing the big gain caused by the post-Money in the Bank buzz didn’t sustain.
The Olympic swimming trials on NBC did 5.17 million viewers, so one can argue there was some sports competition, but that was only against the first hour of the show.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 3.10 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 3.17 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 3.01 million viewers
Dave Meltzer is the founder and lead writer on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the weekly constant when it comes to news and reviews in pro wrestling and mixed martial arts for more than 40 years. Dave also co-hosts Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and had had bylines for The National, Yahoo Sports, MMA Fighting and others.