Just How Bad Was The Raw Rating?

Richard Gray December 4, 2012 WWE News 16 Comments

How bad was this week’s WWE Raw rating?

The show did the worst average viewership of any Raw this year, including less viewers than the October 22nd Raw that did the lowest Raw rating in 15 years for a non-holiday episode (2.48). That show averaged 3,553,000 viewers.

While this week’s show was rated higher at 2.55 it only averaged 3,437,000 viewers.

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Richard Gray

Richard Gray is the owner and editor of WrestlingNewsWorld.com. Covering the professional wrestling business since 1999, Richard holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from West Virginia University. He is also the owner of Gray Internet Technologies, LLC. and should be contacted with all business matters. You can friend him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. Email him directly at [email protected].

Isaac

It really sucks that just when they are having more wrestling on the show and featuring new stars. That the ratings tank like this
- Bob
  
  Which is exactly why ratings are lower. Notice how the ratings started to tank during the emergence of guys like CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Cesaro, etc. All incredible wrestlers. Unfortunately, their style of wrestling is considered “boring”. Audiences have trouble relating to professional wrestling because they don’t understand the art of it.
  - the arbiter
    
    Ratings were tanking well before the rise of CM Punk and Bryan. This decline has been happening for a decade.
    
    The three hour format really isn't helping casual viewers stay tuned in though. I watch the show on DVR and fast forward all the recaps and ads. Cuts out about 90 mins
    - Ken
      
      I download it or watch it online so I can skip through the crap and don't count towards the ratings at all. I know there's a lot of others who do the same. I wan the ratings to tank as they are doing so that Vince learns he has to do something to improve the product.
      The products is entertaining enough to watch and follow at the moment, but not entertaining enough to watch LIVE, RIGHT NOW. That costs money. In this economy I can't afford to spend money on things that aren't absolutely 100% worth it if I can get them cheaper/free elsewhere.
  - William Shatner
    
    Which is exactly why the WWE needs edgy and cutting edge storylines and higher intensity, violent action to keep things interesting while the casual fans get more familiar with the new talent.
    Relaxing the limitations they put on wrestlers would help also. Banning quote-dangerous-endquote moves for the talent's safety makes for very boring, very repetitive, cookie-cutter matches that can effectively be ignored. Dangerous moves and high risk spots and similar make for interesting action. The math behind it is quite simple.
Alex Barie

Less viewers but a higher rating? Life is a mystery.
- Snap
  
  I'm taking a shot in the dark here, but it could be the distribution of those viewers. I think ratings are calculated by the quarter hours so some quarters could be higher rated than others, while others tank so the average would be based on those quarter hour results, but the viewers could be be raw data (pun not intended) for each hour.
Slade6alpha

Just goes to show how much the majority of WWE fans thinks of wrestling and new talent. Just hope they would go back to two hours, but if Vince is making profit from that extra hour, than I wouldn't expect it to change. Long term wise, this has to take a toll on the writers, wrestlers, and the audience.
ted

the rating is due to the massice number the nfl did on monday. vince mcmahon, usa net, intelligent people see this and accept it. thankfully, the nfl ends this month on mondays. in fact from january 14th, 2013 until september there will be no more football competition from the nfl for wwe and the ratings will go up .
Ray

I think its probaly time to revamp their business model. Attitude era produced the best superstars. Why are they pushing Cesaro? Wrestling wise, good. Mic wise, boring! Punk has both, Bryan has both. If I want to enjoy "the art of wrestling" I'll watch ROH. If I want a combo of everything I'd count on WWE. But this year WWE has droped the ball. Not to mention the anouncing Ol King, Cole a lot of the time don't bring the intnsity into the match and at times hardly cover the matchs and jibber jabber about other things and don't put the matches over. JESUS!!!!
Anand

The biggest problem would for viewers to watch 3 hours of a show on a Monday night when we consider the fact that everyone's gotta go to work the next day. Plus 3 hours of shows with no-logic filler matches totalling up to at least one hour doesnt help either.

Of the 3 full hours of the show – We get

One 15-20 min quality promo from the top guys like punk, cena etc.
One great quality match running 10-15 mins
One or two good quality matches running 8-10 mins each
Two or more no-logic or Squash matches running less than 5 mins each
Multiple backstage segments that run to around 3-5 mins each – Most of which make no sense at all
Multiple recaps of what happened in 2010, 2011 and so on taking up at least 10 -15 mins per show

Technically as a wrestling fan I would be interested only in the first 3 points with maybe 10-15 mins for the rest of the 3 but it looks like of the 3 hours around 1.5 to 2 hours is devoted to stuff that people dont really care about.
- Anand
  
  WWE should go back to the 2 hour format, concentrate on intersting storylines and quality matches with lesser backstage segments and recaps.
  
  For gods sake no hornswoggle squirting water on a diva or biting someone's a**…
Shawn Murphy

I watch Raw on DVR. When it went to 3 hours, I said that there would be no turning back. If they were to go back to 2 hours, it would almost seem lackluster and very short. I try and fast forward the commercials, the recaps of the recaps of what happened earlier in the night, and no logic matches that are less than pointless. In the last month or so, the actual “wrestling“ main event comes at the end of hour 2. I call these potential PPV matches, or a tag match involving multiple main event guys. At the end of that match, I kind of feel drained. That‘s what I think is happening with the viewership. People who watch it live with commercials dont want to sit through a full 3 hours with commercials, and constant recaps, and no logic matches and Hornswoggle segments, and endless entrances (ex: Orton, ADR, Kane), with spurts of genius that only come about twice an episode. Also, the casual viewer isn‘t going to care about those stuff either. They also dont care about the people they haven‘t seen before (Cesaro, Sandow,Rollins, Reigns,and Ambrose, because they dont follow the indy scene). The answer won‘t be to bring back the attitude era to bring the casual fan in ( ex: Heyman‘s “heart attack“. The hardcore fan thought that was too edgy, how would the casual fan feel?). You can look for WWE to pick up the pace around after TLC. Once the quality of the product gets around, and not that much competition around that time ( no football, Pres. Debates, etc.) The viewership will go up, and the ratings will to. Raw will never go back to 2 hours. We have to live with that.
Cryme Tyme

RG3 vs Eli. The WWE cant compete with that
- Best in the world
  
  Exactly
Matt

I don't wanna be the guy who says "CM Punk can't draw interest anymore" but it's starting to seem like that. Hopefully with The Shield, more up and coming talent and The Rock coming back, 2013 will be a much stronger year.