WWE Raw season premiere draws best ratings since August 12
The promotion of a loaded Raw with Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and Brock Lesnar, led to a 16 percent jump in audience last night with Raw averaging 2.57 million viewers.
It was the best number for the show since August 12, meaning it beat a number of weeks before football season started and easily topped every week against Monday Night Football.
The game itself made no difference in the ratings as compared to last week, as the Bengals vs. Steelers game last night did 10.47 million viewers, actually up from the 10.33 million viewers the week before.
9-1-1 on FOX, which featured Ronda Rousey, was the second highest rated show on television last night with 7.46 million viewers.
Raw was still ninth place for the night on cable, trailing only NFL and news programming, barely beating 90 Day Fiance on TLC at 2.50 million.
Raw did its usual patterns of falling each hour, although the 10.6 percent first-to-third hour drop was less than usual, which is also a good sign.
What was notable is that in the younger demos, 12-34, that women stayed the same in hour three as hour one, and men actually increased, the opposite of usual patterns.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 2.70 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 2.59 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 2.42 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.