Raw had what had to be considered good news on the ratings front as Monday’s show averaged 2.21 million viewers, up five percent from the prior week and breaking a three-week streak of the three least-watched non-holiday episodes of the show dating back to 1997.
The key to the good news is the Seahawks-Vikings Monday Night Football game did 14.03 million viewers, the second largest of the season. If you look at the last three weeks of Raw and the expected rating of the football game, a record low could have easily happened.
It was the same usual pattern with viewership declining throughout the show. Raw was 11th overall on cable and fourth in the 18-49 demo, trailing only football related programming on ESPN in the latter, and to football and only news shows in the former.
The rating was down only three percent from the same week last year, although this week last year was at the time the lowest non-holiday number for the show since early 1997.
The bad news is the 20 percent first-to-third hour drop just missed the top 10 of all-time.
As far as the audience drops by demo from hour one to hour three, women 18-49 fell 18 percent, men 18-49 fell 23 percent, teenage girls fell 40 percent, teenage boys fell 23 percent, and over 50 fell 17 percent.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 2.42 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.28 million viewers
10 p.m,. 1.93 million viewers