WWE Network is still thriving, but WWE’s television ratings aren’t exactly causing the company’s brass to celebrate. This Monday’s edition of Raw drew a 2.33 rating and 3.33 million viewers – still good for third-best on cable for the evening (behind Monday Night Football and the post-game SportsCenter), but down to a historic low.

Last year’s comparable Raw drew a 2.83 rating, and 2013’s drew a 2.68 rating. The “football excuse” doesn’t work either, because while Raw’s ratings have usually dropped once football season has started up, the first three episodes of Raw of the NFL season are down nearly 14% from the first three episodes last year.

The overall viewership from this Monday’s episode is the lowest for an episode on a non-holiday weekend since October 13th, 1997, back when Raw was regularly getting trounced in the Monday Night Wars by the dearly departed WCW Monday Nitro. And you can almost take that “non-holiday” part out of the equation – Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer noted that only a Christmas Eve show from 2012 drew lower ratings since 1997. Meltzer also points out that the 3.19 million viewers drawn for the third hour of the show is the second lowest audience for hour number three during its history.

Three million viewers is still a damn good number – the entire NHL Stanley Cup Playoff only averaged 1.43 million viewers on NBC’s family of networks, and they were thrilled. But for a company that was once regularly cruising with ratings above 5.0? Three million viewers is a disappointment.

What’s going on with the ratings? Uproxx’s Brandon Stroud suggested that Raw is bland and that all of the episodes seem the same. Back in July when another episode of Raw pulled a disastrous rating, I brought up the prevalence of DVRs and the ability to plow throw an entire three hour episode in a half hour to see what you want to see. James Caldwell of PWTorch suggested that drastic changes were needed to move the product in a different direction long-term.

It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, WWE decides to do to combat these slipping ratings. The company just got its new TV deal, so there isn’t a worry about the money running out any time soon – but if business drops off elsewhere, they could be in trouble.

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.

Comments are closed.