Raw went up this week. It finished at a 2.79, up from the 2.69 the week previous.
H1: 3.09
H2: 2.80
H3: 2.47
Raw went up this week. It finished at a 2.79, up from the 2.69 the week previous.
H1: 3.09
H2: 2.80
H3: 2.47
Smackdown:
Last week: 2.481
This week: 2.578
Jesus that Raw third hour has become the "hardcore only" hour.
It makes no sense to keep going at it the same way. Do something, anything different with that third hour. Make it entirely interactive with fans voting on stipulations, make it all CW action, all women, use it to host an on going weekly tournament to decide challengers for upcoming title shots.
Fucking anything.
Anything?
#Enzospenis
Butta-boom, realest champ locked out the room....how you doin?
Christmas ratings are in.
Raw went down, obviously, but not as much as you might have thought it would. It finished at a 2.70, down from the 2.79 the week previous. The third hour actually went up from last week, FWIW. That probably played a significant role in the ratings not falling completely from last week.
H1: 2.95
H2: 2.62
H3: 2.53
Smackdown:
Last week: 2.578
This week: 2.656
Raw:
Raw went up. It was coming off the Christmas episode, but it was facing some pretty tough competition with the college football game. It finished at a 2.86, up from the 2.70 the week previous.
H1: 2.97
H2: 2.91
H3: 2.71
Smackdown:
Last week: 2.656
This week: 2.720
I would think WWE is happy with those ratings
I really wish I had cable and could catch these shows more often than not, or even DVR them. Just not something I can afford at the moment.
SD has been inching closer and closer to Raw's average. Not just because Raw is trending down either. Before it went live SD seemed to bounce around 2.1 - 2.4 million viewers. Now that it's live on Tuesday it seems to regularly stay in the 2.4 - 2.7 range.
They have to be pleased with that.
USA has to be, as well. It's really going to be interesting how those negotiations go.Originally Posted by Rancid_Planet
Raw went down this week, facing the national championship game. It finished at at a 2.76, down from the 2.86 the week previous.
H1: 2.99
H2: 2.78
H3: 2.50
Smackdown:
Last week: 2.720
This week: 2.603
Raw went up big time, with no real sports competition running opposed. It finished at at a 3.25, up from the 2.76 the week previous.
H1: 3.57
H2: 3.36
H3: 2.81
Smackdown:
Last week: 2.603
This week: 2.602
Raw blew up, obviously. It finished at a 4.53, well above the 3.25 the week before. Clearly skewed for the heavy promotion.
Despite the "special attraction" nature of it, it clearly fell victim to the same pitfalls of a regular episode.
H1: 4.80
H2: 4.64
H3: 4.15
I enjoyed it.
I wish Stone Cold had one more run left in him.
Monster numbers. I didn't expect to see a bump quite like that.
Smackdown:
Last week: 2.602
This week: 2.580
Yeah the show gets the same reviews as most Raws. A couple good segments, a good match or 2 maybe, but the rest of it sucked. The crazy thing is this just shows how big of draws certain wrestlers were to be able to pull a number like they did using the same legends they pretty much use all year long.
I'm basing the comparison between the week before Raw 25 and this week. With that, it went up. The week before Raw 25 was a 3.25, and this week was 3.39.
H1: 3.66
H2: 3.46
H3: 3.06
Smackdown:
Last week: 2.580
This week: 2.509
Raw fell this week, landing at 3.05. Last week was 3.39.
H1: 3.16
H2: 3.21
H3: 2.79
Smackdown:
Last week: 2.509
This week: 2.505
Raw saw an uptick week, landing at 3.11. Last week was 3.05.
H1: 3.26
H2: 3.22
H3: 2.84
Smackdown:
Last week: 2.505
This week: 2.449
Raw had a record low number of viewers for a non holiday show.
Good. It's shit.
I'm sure they'll spin it that it's just not about ratings anymore. You have to factor in DVR plays, YouTube views, Hulu watches, Twitter activity, etc. etc.
There was pretty stiff competition for a change - not just MNF (with a compelling 4th quarter, not quite enough FitzMagic), but also the heavily promoted final season premiere of Big Bang Theory.
Hopefully Vince won't panic and think he needs to bring Hulk Hogan back.
The competition isn't really any different than it is every other year. Last year they also had to go up against MNF and a Monday full of season premieres.
Vince doesn't care about ratings.
Yeah, the business is so strange. There's never been less buzz about it or less people watching it, yet the value has gone up by about $6 billion in the last 5 years. Crazy. The same sinking ratings and dwindling attendances that have killed every other national promotion has, if anything, made the WWE a more bankable commodity. Business doesn't fluctuate. It just slowly, methodically, goes down. Not down enough to pull the plug, not up enough to worry about bidding wars. Just a steady viewership of between 2.5 and 3 million people every Monday for TV that the network doesn't have to produce. Barmy.
Record low ratings for Raw again. The good news is that the old record didn't stay on the books for too long.
The ratings will have to get unbelievably bad before they even begin to give a shit.
At this rate there will be no WWE in a year
We say Vince doesn't care but at a certain point he will. You can make all the excuses about pirating and what have you but eventually your numbers can't just keep going down to zero. Some amount of production change will eventually happen to combat the ever spiraling viewership of Raw and SD.
It's just a matter of when. Could be days, could be years.
The only thing that beat WWE was MNF and one hour of Love & Hip Hop on VH1. Whatever the fuck that is.
When baking championships on Food Network or Pawn Stars/Property Brothers/American Pickers/whatever start beating it, then USA might give a shit. Otherwise, they're looking at a lot more metrics than the overnight ratings.
do the ratings reflect how many people have simply cut the cord? Lots of people are ditching cable altogether
All baking shows do for me is realize how much I suck at cooking and it depresses me.
we will see a RAW with under 2 million viewers soon. Maybe before end of the year. I would bet the christmas or thanksgiving week episode will get under 2 million.
I thought Smackdown has been pretty consistent lately as far as the ratings.
You have to understand that they don't care about this. This is happening to all television ratings, and they just signed deals worth over a billion dollars in the past year. There is no risk of their shows being taken off the air, so there is no reason to be concerned about a weekly rating. They aren't concerned with week to week results anymore. They don't have to be. They're an institution now, and only have to focus on yearly financial results, which have been staggeringly great.
Ratings don't matter.
Nielsen ratings have always been limited, but previously were a necessary evil. This is changing.
Networks are already pulling more viewership numbers directly from providers. More data capturing this way will be occurring.
Also, the self-serving numbers WWE regularly parades as far as how "engaged" their audience is? There is actually some relevance in those types of analytics for advertisers.
Just a matter of when sir.
Former creative writer Tommie Casiello explained that WWE cares about the demos more so than the weekly rating on Twitter the other day.
People are still watching RAW, just not necessarily live or on USA. Some DVR it so they can skip through the stuff they don't care about, others watch the edited version on Hulu, and then there's the ones who just watch clips on YouTube. WWE obviously knows this, so they take everything into account. The live rating is only a piece of the bigger picture.
It's more fun and time saving to just watch This Week in WWE.
No, dude. It isn't.
WWE's not going anywhere any time soon no matter their creative faults. Vince is Scrooge McDuck taking a divebomb into the money pool through sheer exposure.
Buddy. Do you know why WWE just got that giant tv deal from Fox for the rights to SD? It isn't because of how profitable WWE is. Fox doesn't see one red cent of the merchandise sales. They don't earn one penny off of Network revenue.
Fox, and USA just gave them billions of dollars based off of how good the viewership is for live programming. Because live programming is a big get for the networks these days. People are less likely to DVR or pirate and more likely to actually watch live. Which means the ad revenue is better.
If those numbers keep going ever downward, Vince absolutely will start to care because he won't be able to get the same kind of rights fees he's getting right now.
Oh WWE is far too well ran to ever go out of business. But businesses want to maintain and expand profits. They don't see it as success to simply keep existing.
They don't compare the current ratings metrics to what ratings were back in the AE or ten years ago or five years ago. They compare the ratings to everything else on right now that they're competeing for time, sponsorship, ad dollars, etc. for. When QVC Diamondique Ring sale airtime starts beating out the main event, then they might start to panic.
Yes I agree with that.
They definitely pay attention to ratings it's just never been the end all be all, even during the MNW you hear Shawn Michaels flat out say he never heard anyone tripping out solely about ratings. Anyone who thinks they don't care are just looking to argue semantics.
Ratings, live gate, merch, demographic, etc. It all matters. If Raw was averaging a 1.4 rating they would be in some trouble. Not going out of business trouble, but trouble. Do you think Fox would have gone to them if they were doing TNA Impact numbers? But here's the thing....We as fans shouldn't give 2 shits about it because we don't know if say making Roman a midcarder who puts over Aiden English and Zack Ryder, then elevating Drew McIntyre, would take the shows from 2.5 to 4.5.
I just think we use that as ammo toward the company when shit isn't going the way we would like.
if they keep falling and everything else stays the same or rises, sure. but there's no indication that anything is poised to break out in the ratings that the WWE competes with. you're beyond speculative with all this instead of looking at the actual facts and data. ratings have already been slipping yet they got this insane deal. that's set as a benchmark. maybe the next deal isn't as high, but coming down from insane to ridiculous isnt going to register much.;
If every other station continues to lose in the ratings like WWE, none of them will have the money left to pay big TV deal money to McMahon. Won't happen soon, but I remember reading radio was a big thing before television too.
and by the time it's reached that point the next standard and business model will have obviously been established and the WWE has hedged their bets by having their own OTT network to distribute content. if cable and network television starts to sink to the point of total irrelevancy or being unable to pay content creators anything then the WWE likely wont be giving a shit about their ratings on those networks.
I agree. It won't be anytime soon but I do believe we will get to a point where the WWE will be able to sustain itself without needing cable. We're already seeing the genesis, give it 10 years. If that.
Yeah.... you're right..... but I just wish the simpler answer was "WWE improves their product and people start watching again". It's all subjective.
With Smackdown 1000 versus a regular Raw, Smackdown did better in the ratings than Raw (2.54 to 2.39). It's only the second time since Smackdown went live in July of 2016 that it has beat Raw in the ratings within the same week.
There was a surprisingly very good MNF game, as well as a baseball playoff game, that Raw had to compete with. SD only had baseball.
Raw has pretty much always beaten Smackdown on football weeks. Nice for the blue brand to see that there 1000 promotion at least got them in the ball game with Raw.
Apparently this week’s show was the lowest viewership for RAW ever.
Garbage product deserves the shit ratings.
Raw is just so bad right now.
So bad.
It's like Roman not being there has just totally fucking broken Vince's mind. 5 years of only thinking about one guy and one push and now he can't wrap his head around his own product without him.
Vince will never get that Corbin is failing to entertain.
I am thinking that Corbin is actually worse than X-Pac heat.
Even worse than a Brie Bella promo and match
sad numbers for raw
Corbin is really pretty funny and entertaining compared to watching Finn Balor do Irish Step Dancing in the ring for the thousandth time as he wrestles with no hands for one....
.....or Samoa Joe make fun of a real life drunk/addict or play stalker - great stuff there
Samoa Joe is gold.
Corbin is the focal point of Raw and no one gives a shit.
Smackdown failed to garner 2 million viewers for this week. Lowest live Smackdown rating since Election night 2016 and that one is for obvious reasons.
Sad part about it is Corbin isn't even that bad.
He is solid enough in the ring and decent enough of a talker.
I hate how he falls between two stools though character wise. He is a huge bloke who is supposed to be a "lone wolf" yet he also acts cowardly at times and seeks the praise of his boss and creates alliances with other wrestlers. Its hard to give any reaction to guys like that as nobody actually knows who he is character wise. Why does he want to be the GM? He is a young up and coming guy not some has been trying to cling on to a job.
He failed miserably in his initial push, with the long stringy but balding head. And he wasn't given a chance to talk and develop his character as the Lone Wolf. The repackaging helped his look, and I think he has become more comfortable on the mic and in the ring, but really, he has looked weak, cowardly, and ineffective. And he really hasn't beaten anybody or even been in decent feud for his entire run. As fans, we will buy his size, look, and finisher, but we'd like to see him beat a few guys, even jobbers, or maybe hold his own on the mic. I had hopes with a feud with Angle, but they have done nothing and dropped that by sacrificing Angle to Drew instead.
Maybe Alexa Bliss - who is naturally a gifted talker - could have a couple backstage segments with him - progress reports, or something, and pull some character/motivation out of him. Since Miz left for SD, I don't see anyone else on the RAW roster (not counting absent Heyman) who can handle an interview where everyone's character comes out better.
He's definitely improved since becoming a constable. However, the Corbin/Balor carrying on really didn't do any favour. Corbin mocks Balor, uses dirty tricks but Demon gets the last laugh. Should've ended right there.
Corbin is nowhere near being ready to be a focal point of the show.
I really believe that WWE might know this, and is willing to take some degree of ratings hit during a traditionally low period.
I thought Braun might have a hard time regaining his initial momentum. Coming back and removing Baron as GM might honestly right the ship.
Last edited by Mazer; December 6th, 2018 at 9:33 PM.
Alexa for GM and more segments with Braun.
That's what they get for not protecting anybody. The top 12 or so regular guys on Rawall pretty much have parity booking, so nobody stands out as a star. Stars shouldn't lose much. EVERYBODY loses at least once a month on TV/PPV. The point of wrestling is building to matches where you care who wins and loses. If nothing happens either way, there's no reason to care. I'm amazed anybody watches it to be honest. For people that watch all the pre-season friendlies for their teams I guess. That's the market.
The talent alone makes some watch it all the time, but offering a watered-down product as long as WWE been doing has finally been catching up with them.
Fucking this^
This week was lower than last week’s all-time low.
Raw fucking sucks.
I don’t watch. There’s no point. Nothing ever happens.
It's must not see tv.
None of this matters until someone at Fox or USA tells Vince their new deals are shit canned. Til that happens these rating plummets mean nothing.
Is USA that desperate to pay $240M per year for this shitshow?
We need Roman back.
Not because Raw can't be good without him. But because I don't think Vince is going to calm down and stop fucking everything up until he has his Roman again.
It's not just that nothing actually happens. I found that watching the shows tends to do more to put me off the product than interest me at this point. The booking is so bad it makes me less interested in matches and less involved in the characters. For example, there were some big matches scheduled for Summerslam I was interested in and I had planned to watch the show. I caught up with some of clips from TV for the feuds I was into but it was so bad it put me off entirely and I never even watched Summerslam in the end. I'll stick to NXT and maybe the big four/five PPVs, with more involvement in Wrestlemania season.
For a number of years I'd gradually lose interest after Mania but I'd still keep tabs on things, watch highlights from weekly TV and the big shows. Even if things weren't great there was always talent you liked and at least a couple of things worth watching for. Having a nerdy interest in wrestling also means you'd like to discuss how things could be improved, what different directions you hope they'd go in, etc. But now the roster(s) are all so bloated I can't even name all the people on each show and Vince is too far gone to have any optimism that things will change until he hands the reigns over to someone else, so what's the point?
Last edited by Ringo; December 12th, 2018 at 6:43 AM.
PPVs, NXT and NXT UK is more than enough for me. I catch a bit of Raw and Smackdown now only because of my son and he's too young to realise how shite it is. Just hearing it in the background though is really, really irritating to me now.
Honestly, the problem with Raw (and WWE in general) is the lack of any faces that are booked strong. WWE continually puts on a villain centric show where they cheat and run roughshod over the faces, who barely win and always look like schlubs.
Balor - Should be HUGE, but he's a schlub
Elias (now that he's a face) - schlub
Braun Strowman should be WWE champion- and they want us to think he's imposing and strong- but he's a schlub whenever he's put across from Brock or Roman, when it counts and when he needs a signature win.
Even Roman, whose "strong" booking sort of has become a meme, honestly is pretty beleaguered most of the time, failing against Brock umpteen times before he finally won.
Daniel Bryan SHOULD have been a megaface champ long ago, but they choose to only put the belt on him as a cheating heel.
At least Smackdown has been a bit better all year, a lot of it due to AJ Styles rightfully being the champ for as long as he was.
Simply put, there are no HERO's on WWE programming, particularly with the men.
The hottest wrestler in WWE- Becky Lynch- got big because she finally stopped acting a like a schlub (although in WWE logic, that meant they were railroading her towards being a villain., but thankfully they noticed the reactions she got, and now she's in the face role, and they didn't schlub up her character (yet).
But Sasha/Bailey have both been schlubs for a long time (and that is a crime). Asuka's been flirting with schlub-dom all year since WrestleMania, but maybe her fortunes will turn at TLC- but I doubt it.
But yes, bottom line- we want cool faces who win and do bold things. Not schlubs. Yes, villians are important to a story, but they need to be obstacles that are defeated- they can't be constantly running the show all the damn time. Pretty sure Stephanie McMahon herself (her real self, not her on-air heel persona) has said they need to be in the business of "putting smiles on people's faces". Honestly, WWE (Vince) should take that advice, as that's their biggest problem.
I believe so. I remember reading an article when they green lighted a second season of the purge, citing it was their number 1 drama on the network. Their number was still lower than what Raw pulled in.
Faces need to be hero's and heels need to be actually menacing. They need to make faces more determined and serious in toppling the heels that should be booked as titans. Not weaklings. I hate to take a page out of Lucha Underground's book, but any time a bad guy was defeated... it felt like a titan was taken down.
For instance, a guy like Miz isn't that physically scary looking... but it should be a big deal any time he loses. The hit points need to go up.
I feel we're being awfully negative here. So let me say this.
Smackdown is as good as Raw is bad.
I mean SD is really really fucking good right now.
Fox paid a billion dollars for SmackDown and they're expecting around 3.3 million viewers a week. Vince can't expect to big league Fox if he can't deliver what they're asking for.
Raw up almost 400,000 viewers this week. I didn’t watch TLC, but I’ve heard it was quite good, so I assume this’ll be a post-PPV bump. Next two weeks should be shit because of the holidays, so next real rating should be after that. Let’s see if this momentum and the promise of more McMahon’s helps or hurts the ratings.
Natural downward slide hour by hour, but the last hour didn't go under 2 million so that's relatively promising. I could see the audience really tuning out of a gauntlet match like that.
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