WWE News: Raw Viewership Down Slightly for Taped Episode

What’s the Story?

The Nov. 6 edition of Monday Night Raw was taped from Manchester, England and averaged 2.841 million viewers; down 13,000 viewers from last week’s episode which averaged 2.854 million.

In Case You Didn’t Know...

The first hour of Raw kicked off with The Miz interviewing Kurt Angle during a MizTV segment and was followed by Jason Jordan taking on Elias in a Guitar-on-a-pole match.

The second hour of Raw featured Samoa Joe and Finn Bálor facing off as well as a tag team match between Sasha Banks and Bayley against Alicia Fox and Nia Jax.

The final hour of Raw featured Braun Strowman versus The Miz and the Raw Tag Team Championship match between Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins against Cesaro & Sheamus.

The Heart of the Matter

Raw was taped hours before it broadcast in the United States and spoilers flooded the internet before the show aired on cable. Raw was also pitted against two NBA games and the NFL game between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers.

The following are the hourly breakdown for this week’s edition of Raw:

Hour One: 2.935 million

Hour Two: 2.959 million

Hour Three: 2.630 million

Moving from hour one to hour two often results in a drop in viewers, but this week’s episode saw the first spike in viewers for hour two since the August 21 edition. The increase in hour two was approximately 24,000 viewers, but the drop in hour three was about 330,000.

What’s Next?

Next week’s Raw will be the go-home show for Survivor Series and will be the final chance for the Raw Women’s Team to fill the voids in their team before the pay-per-view.

That episode of Raw will be a live broadcast and will be up against the NFL game between the Miami Dolphins and the Carolina Panthers as well as 6 NBA games.

Two of the basketball games will carry over into the start of Raw, the next two games start at the same time as Raw and the final two games begin an hour into Raw’s broadcast.

Author’s Take

Despite viewership being down and spoilers running rampant, this week’s episode of Raw fared much better than fans expected.

Hopefully, the WWE has something big planned for next week because WWE programming tend to decline in viewers on episodes prior to a pay-per-view.