Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: ratings, wrestling, wwe
WWE Raw Scores Third Place in Monday Cable Ratings
WWE took third place in the Monday cable ratings race, according to a report from ShowBuzz Daily. The show's first hour came in behind two Fox News programs in the demographic of people age 18-49, scoring a .59 rating. The show defeated an episode of Love and Hip Hop Atlanta, which took fourth place. The second hour of Raw came in fifth place, followed by an episode of Hannity, and then the third hour of Raw. A majority of the ratings chart for Monday featured several hours of cable news shows, which are a big draw during these trying times. WWE, however, is holding its own as one of the few live sports programs available to watch in the current climate of state-wide bans on public gatherings. Here are some of the exciting moments viewers were treated to last night.
Some Take a Glass Half Empty Approach to WWE's Success
Despite criticism of WWE's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, it looks like the company remains a ratings juggernaut even in the crowd-free era. Perhaps that's because of, not in spite of, the lack of an audience, who frequent sully the broadcast by injecting their contrary opinions into the show by booing the wrestlers they're supposed to cheer and cheering the wrestlers they're supposed to boo. I was just speaking with my wife Keighleyanne this weekend about how much more I'm enjoying WWE now that they don't have crowds in attendance, and the latest ratings appear to validate my viewpoint.
Despite the ratings demo performance, WWE's latest episode of Monday Night Raw scored its lowest viewership ever for a live show, according to Dave Meltzer at F4WOnline. An average of 1.91 million people watched Raw on Monday, with the show once advertised as number one on cable TV ranking 37th in terms of viewership. Viewership also declined throughout the night, perhaps due to people being turned off by Jerry Lawler's moonsault joke in the middle of the show. Or maybe it's because everyone is glued to cable news because of the global pandemic. Either way, viewership may be down, but WWE is making the best of the circumstances.