Raw on Monday featured one of the largest first-to-third hour tune-outs in history, largely due to the artificially high hour one having no commercials.
The show averaged 1.67 million viewers, in line with what Raw has been doing in recent weeks, and drew a 0.40 rating in 18-49. The latter was the lowest non-holiday number of the year. The only episodes this year that were lower were on January 1, July 4, and October 31.
The key was the 27 percent first-to-third hour drop. Hour one, the commercial-free hour, did well due to not having the declines that take place during commercials. But that didn't help hours two and three, and in particular hour three with a main event of Kevin Owens vs. Jey Uso.
This was against a weaker NFL game, as both Pittsburgh and Indianapolis came in below .500 and the game did 10.88 million viewers and a 3.18 in 18-49, at the low end of what football has been doing in the time slot.
Raw beat everything else on cable except the football game, the kickoff show, the postgame show, the Countdown show, and the SportsCenter episode after the game, to finish in sixth place.
Seventh place was the South Korea vs. Ghana World Cup game on FS1 at 7:43 a.m., which did 912,000 viewers and drew a 0.33 in 18-49.
Raw was 10th in women 18-49 (much lower than usual), sixth in men 18-49, sixth in 18-34, sixth in women 12-34, and seventh in men 12-34 (behind NFL and the morning World Cup game). In total viewers, Raw was 13th, trailing only NFL-related programming and news.
Raw was up one percent in viewers from last week, down two percent in 18-49, and up seven percent in 18-34.
From one year ago this week, Raw was down one percent in viewers, down 11 percent in 18-49, and up 11 percent in 18-34.
As far as where the drops came, women 18-49 dropped 27 percent from hour one to three, men 18-49 dropped 21 percent, women 12-34 dropped 17 percent, men 12-34 dropped 18 percent, and people over 50 dropped 28 percent.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 1.96 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 1.62 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.45 million viewers
The first hour of the show aired commercial-free.
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