WWE Raw ratings bounce back big with no NFL competition

July 3, 2020 Off By EveAim

With the NFL regular season concluding, Raw had no major competition in the ratings last night and drew its second biggest audience since August. 

Raw averaged 2.433 million viewers for last night’s show. Hour one averaged 2.525 million viewers, hour two dropped to 2.464 million, and the third hour, which had a 10-minute overrun, came in at 2.328 million. The eight percent drop over the three hours was much better audience retention than Raw has usually had for the last several years. 

The retention speaks to the interest in the Lana/Bobby Lashley wedding angle, and WWE’s YouTube clip of the segment currently has over two million views. 

The only bigger audience for Raw since the start of the NFL season was the September 30 “season premiere” that featured guest appearances by Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan. 

Raw was seventh for the night on cable in terms of total TV viewers, with college football’s Orange Bowl and related studio programming being the biggest competition. Raw averaged a 0.8 rating in the 18-49 demo, trailing only the football game and the ESPN pre- and post-game shows. 

Here’s a look at the last 10 weeks of Raw numbers as compared to one year ago at this time, keeping in mind that the last two weeks went up against shows that aired on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve in 2018: