WWE Raw Rating Rises, Viewership Ticks Up

– The rating for this week’s Raw held up admirably against a big Monday Night Football game and even rose a bit. Monday night’s episode of Raw brought in a 0.76 rating in the 18 – 49 demographic and 2.136 million viewers, up 5% and less than a percent from last week’s 0.72 demo rating and 2.133 million viewers. The demo rating was the best since the September 30th episode had a 0.89, while the audience was still down from 2.320 million two weeks ago.

That’s a solid hold for a show that has been shedding ratings consistently in the last month, but it’s a particular sign of relief for WWE considering it was against a heavily-watched Monday Night Football game. ESPN’s Cowboys vs. Giants game did a 4.54 demo rating and 13.979 million viewers to win the night per Showbuzz Daily. For perspective, that’s up 44% and 40% from the previous Monday’s NFL game (Dolphins vs. Steelers), which had a 3.13 demo rating and 9.975 million viewers. A rise against a much stronger direct competition is, of course, good news for Raw.

That said, there is some bad news, and that’s the drop-off. There was a huge drop in the 10 PM hour after the 9 PM hour held up relatively well. It’s not clear if Monday Night Football gained those viewers, as the individual hourly or quarter-hour numbers for those games aren’t available.

The hourly numbers for the show were:

* 8 PM: 0.83 demo rating (2.351 million viewers)
* 9 PM: 0.79 demo rating (2.207 million viewers)
* 10 PM: 0.65 demo rating (1.849 million viewers)