WWE Raw Sees Sharp Decline In Viewership From Hour 1 To Hour 3 (Updated With Rating)

I can sort of see where you’re coming from, but I am not exaggerating if I say I can’t stay awake for a full 3 hour or even 2 hour episode of RAW. I don’t know what it is, but the programming they deliver has the tendency to put me to sleep and it doesn’t matter if it is in its normal time slot or an afternoon replay.

I could play a game for several hours and not run the risk of falling asleep while I play but maybe because in that scenario your brain is active and engaged.

I can see the positive side of a longer RAW, yes, unfortunately WWE has fallen short of taking advantage of those potential positives. How often do we really see talent who would otherwise not make the cut on a two hour RAW? Failing that, how often are matches given more time?

You basically expect short Ryback matches, but when only main event guys get more than FOUR minutes for their matches, it’s just like watching a two hour RAW with more recaps and other fluff.

Another positive, of course, is more sponsorship revenue for WWE, but are they or their sponsors really benefiting from an extra hour which the audience doesn’t really want to watch?

The thing with the ratings, though, is they don’t tell you if the 3,488,00 people who watched the third hour were in the 4,147,000 people who watched the beginning of the show. How many of those viewers actually stayed for the second hour and how many of the second hour numbers are viewers who tuned in AT the second hour? You KNOW WWE considers this, otherwise they wouldn’t feel the need to replay some segments in their entirety during the third hour.

The problem we face with three hours RAWs are writers who are exhausted not only because they have to write at least seven hours of television (RAW for 3 hours, SmackDown for 2 and 1 hour each for Main Event and Superstars) but they also have to rewrite stuff at Vince’s whim. Then you need to add another three to four hours when there’s a PPV.

What’s so special about PPVs now that you see three consecutive hours of content each week? Commercial-free broadcasts? Well, technically, but they’re constantly shilling products it’s just you’re PAYING for them to shill products at you.

The thing is, i DON’T want to watch a 3 hour PPV each week and you cannot look at RAW as being PPV quality because it’s not, with quality ranging from garbage to awesome and everywhere in between. I simply won’t watch a full 3 hours of RAW and thanks to tape delay and replays, I can pick and choose WHAT I want to watch.

Just because WWE wants to shove three hours of mostly-mediocre (and sometimes ADD) programming at me each week doesn’t obligate me to sit through it and ask for more.

Finally, you cannot compare RAW to actual sports broadcast. With sports, you don’t have a few minutes of competition followed by a stupid skit, which MIGHT then be followed by another match, if you’re lucky, whereas with a sport like hockey you have play from the moment the puck hits the ice to the moment the timer reaches zero, with any stoppages in play being filled with a commercial. Then there’s an intermission with programs either offering commentary on the period or things like interviews with the players.