What’s the story?
As revealed by ShowBuzz Daily, Monday night’s post-Payback Raw drew it’s lowest viewership numbers of the year.
The background
Monday’s main event saw The Miz defeat Seth Rollins and Finn Bálor in a triple threat match to earn a future shot at Dean Ambrose’s Intercontinental Championship. Miz picked up the victory after interference from Samoa Joe and Bray Wyatt, who attacked Rollins and Bálor respectively, in what was widely considered as a good match.
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The aftermath of Sunday’s Payback and fall out of matches such as Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman and Cesaro & Sheamus vs.The Hardy Boys was thought to be enough of a draw to make Raw a show the fans would tune in to.
The heart of the matter
However, the viewership figures for last night’s show do not make for positive reading, with the final hour drawing lower numbers than the previous two. The first hour drew 2.92 million viewers with the second hour rising to 3.04 million until the last hour dropped to just 2.65 million viewers.
In fact, with the 3-hour show drawing a total of 2.87 million viewers, Raw’s overall viewership was significantly lower than it has been all year, as you can see below:
January 2nd Episode: 3.046 million viewersJanuary 9th Episode: 2.907 million viewersJanuary 16th Episode: 3.271 million viewersJanuary 23rd Episode: 3.292 million viewersJanuary 30th Episode: 3.615 million viewersFebruary 6th Episode: 3.115 million viewersFebruary 13th Episode: 3.087 million viewersFebruary 20th Episode: 3.216 million viewersFebruary 27th Episode: 3.093 million viewersMarch 6th Episode: 3.216 million viewersMarch 13th Episode: 3.232 million viewersMarch 20th Episode: 3.048 million viewersMarch 27th Episode: 3.292 million viewersApril 3rd Episode: 3.767 million viewersApril 10th Episode: 3.429 million viewersApril 17th Episode: 3.346 million viewersApril 24th Episode: 3.007 million viewersMay 1st Episode: 2.87 million viewers
What’s next?
You can expect to see a response to this rather embarrassing statistic on next week’s Raw. Whether it’s a Championship match or a main event with some kind of stipulation, Vince McMahon is surely going to want to put on something big to help get their ratings back on track.
Author’s take
The low numbers came as quite a surprise to me as I thought Monday’s Raw was stronger than it has been in recent weeks.
I was intrigued to see where things would go after Cesaro & Sheamus’ heel turn and Alexa Bliss’ surprise championship win, but it appears as though the majority of people were not so interested.
The main event match between Miz, Rollins and Bálor was also one of the best that Raw has put on in a while in my opinion. So I don’t really understand why the viewing figures dropped so drastically, I guess it’s because Roman Reigns wasn’t on the show, right Vince?
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