WWE star Daniel Bryan's three-match, three-segment performance in the final hour of Monday's Raw scored above-average based on the quarter-hour ratings and minute-by-minute trends.
PWTorch has received minute-by-minutes for the demographic of males 18-49, which captures the widest portion of Raw's key audience. The following is a break down of the Gauntlet from the July 22 Raw.
- Bryan's three-match segment from 10:25 p.m. to 11:06 p.m. averaged 1.252 million viewers. This included three commercial breaks.
The overall Raw show averaged 1.241 million viewers, which includes Bryan's 40-minute segment. Prior to Bryan's three-segment stretch, Raw averaged 1.236 million viewers from Q1 to Q9.
- The most-watched portion of the third hour was the Paul Heyman-C.M. Punk promo exchange in Q9. The peak audience was 1.496 million viewers at 10:07. By comparison, Bryan's three-match run peaked with 1.459 million viewers at 11:04 p.m. during the over-run.
- Looking at the audience inflows and outflows, it's worth noting that channel-flipping slowed down during Bryan's gauntlet compared the first and second hours.
Whereas the top recipient of Raw's audience hit 30,000 viewers regularly during the first and second hours, the Bryan Gauntlet did not hit 30k one time. The most was 27,000 to "Big Bang Theory" at 10:39 p.m. during a commercial.
- Bryan's gauntlet started with a baseline audience of 1.322 million viewers at 10:25 p.m. when Jack Swagger was introduced as Bryan's first opponent. The Swagger match peaked with 1.363 million viewers, the Antonio Cesaro match peaked with 1.387 million viewers, and the Ryback match peaked with 1.459 million viewers.
This reflects the audience steadily becoming interested in the gauntlet as it unfolded. The following is the flow of the three-segment run.
- 10:25 p.m. - 1.322 million viewers (start of Swagger match)
- 10:27 p.m. - 1.365 million viewers (Swagger match peak)
The announcement of Antonio Cesaro as Bryan's next opponent on the other side of the break did not attract an audience...
- 10:34 p.m. - 1.137 million viewers when Raw returned from break.
- 10:38 p.m. - 1.260 million viewers (peak of Bryan-Cesaro Segment 1)
After Raw cut to a mid-match break, viewers came back for the conclusion of the two-part match...
- 10:43 p.m. - 1.254 million viewers
- 10:47 p.m. - 1.387 million viewers (peak audience of the Cesaro match)
- 10:50 p.m. - 1.366 million viewers (end of match before Raw cut to break with cliffhanger of Bryan's third opponent)
- 10:57 p.m. - 1.382 million viewers for the start of Bryan vs. Ryback.
- 11:00 p.m. - 1.361 million viewers at the top of the hour before a slight over-run increase occurred...
- 11:01 p.m. - 1.421 million viewers
- 11:02 p.m. - 1.413 million viewers
- 11:03 p.m. - 1.407 million viewers
- 11:04 p.m. - 1.459 million viewers (peak of Bryan's three-match run).
- 11:05 p.m. - 1.415 million viewers for the DQ ending to Bryan-Ryback, ending Bryan's gauntlet.
- 11:06 p.m. - 1.407 million viewers for Cena making the save.
- 11:07 p.m. - 1.367 million viewers for Maddox & McMahon backstage reacting.
- 11:08 p.m. - 1.283 million viewers for the final shot of Bryan celebrating in the ring; 39,000 viewers bailed to "Family Guy" at this point.
Caldwell's Analysis: Not a blow-away, but above-average, solid performance for Bryan's big spotlight. For starters, Swagger and Cesaro are nowhere near "main-event level," and Cesaro has been treated like an after-thought for a few months. As a result, it seems like the audience did not take those first two matches seriously until Bryan-Cesaro turned into something special half-way through. Then, the "cliffhanger" of Bryan's final opponent did not produce much of a bump; it wasn't until the over-run where the gauntlet reached the next level.
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