What’s the story?
For the third consecutive week, WWE’s Monday Night RAW saw an increase in viewers, according to a report from PWMania.com.
The report lists ratings for every episode of 2017, with a low point coming on Jan. 9, when just 2.907 million viewers tuned in. It should be noted, however, that the American college football championship game also fell on that night, which would have affected the ratings significantly.
Monday’s episode of RAW, which featured appearances by Triple H, Brock Lesnar and even Samoa Joe, drew 3.615 million viewers.
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The ratings for WWE’s television programming have been the topic of much discussion in recent months and years. It was thought that increasing the ratings could be behind the brand split last year, and a big deal was recently made about the two shows taking turns winning the ratings war.
With much of the external competition either fading or working on a lower plane than WWE, the company’s executives have been looking to find ways to draw in viewers. This has included celebrity appearances, title matches and segments with talents like Lesnar who are thought to be a draw.
The heart of the matter
Ratings are certainly important, but it’s hard to say just how much should be made of these fluctuations in the numbers of viewers from week to week, since RAW routinely puts all three hours in the top 10 among cable programming even on down weeks. Regardless, though, it’s good to see the viewership increase, especially on the night after a major pay-per-view like the Royal Rumble.
It’s also encouraging that the viewership remained mostly steady across the show’s three hours, despite the last hour being advertised as almost entirely talking segments. The first hour reportedly landed 3.628 viewers, followed by 3.643 in the second and 3.574 viewers in the third hour.
What’s next?
The WWE will now need to find ways to continue adding to its viewership each week as football season in America draws to a close with Sunday’s Super Bowl. It also remains to be seen what, if anything, the RAW creative team has gleaned from Smackdown’s bump in ratings recently.
Sportskeeda’s take
Despite all the good news, it’s not hard to see that the ratings for RAW have gone up since there stopped being football games on Monday nights for American viewers. Still, it’s encouraging to see that at least a part of the viewership slump in late 2016 could, in fact, be attributed to football, though.
If the WWE wants to continue building that viewership in an era when viewers have more entertainment choices than ever, they need to continue giving reasons to tune in each week. Monday’s episode was a prime example of this, as a Universal Championship match between Braun Strowman and Kevin Owens was announced on the fly, and Samoa Joe debuted to attack Seth Rollins during what was expected to be a confrontation between Rollins and Triple H.
If fans get the message that every episode of RAW is must-watch television, the ratings will continue to improve.
