What’s the Story?
This week’s episode of Monday Night Raw set a new record for the lowest viewed episode of 2017. The May 29, 2017 edition of Raw averaged 2.613 million viewers and saw its biggest drop in the third hour.
In case you didn’t know.....
Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins and Finn Bálor vs. Samoa Joe vs. Bray Wyatt were the two big matches hyped up for the show this Monday. The first hour of the show primarily focused on a 6-man tag match between Dean Ambrose and The Hardyz against the team of The Miz, Cesaro, and Sheamus.
The second hour of the show saw Bálor, Wyatt, and Joe compete in a triple threat match. Another segment of note in the second hour was This is Your Life segment which involved Alexa Bliss parodying the legendary segment between Mankind and The Rock from 1999.
The final hour of Raw featured a non-title match between Austin Aries and Neville and the main event between Reigns and Rollins.
The heart of the matter
The following is the complete breakdown of this week’s Monday Night Raw viewership:
- Hour 1: 2.689 Million
- Hour 2: 2.681 Million
- Hour 3: 2.468 Million
The third hour saw the biggest decrease in viewership with more than 200,000 people not sticking around to watch Reigns vs. Rollins. The overall viewership for this week’s episode of Raw was 2.613 million viewers.
Impact
While this was an episode of Raw that took place on a holiday, the 2016 Memorial Day Raw averaged 3.229 million viewers. Comparing the 2016 Memorial Day Raw numbers to this year’s results in a 616,000 decrease in overall viewers this past year.
During the past few days, many fans have complained about the Bayley This is Your Life Segment and have already considered it a contender for the worst segment of the year. This segment lasted more than 10 minutes and may be partially responsible for the massive decrease for the program.
This episode’s overall viewership was also lower than the 4th of July Episode of Raw from 2016; an episode many fans considered the worst Raw of that year.
Author’s take
The flagship show is seeing a big drop in their ratings and viewership as each week passes and this week’s episode went without any competition from the NBA Playoffs. Raw’s ratings may see even further declines this fall when Monday Night Football returns if the WWE continue to make Monday Night Raw a show that can’t hold the fan’s attentions.
